Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson (Book Summary and Review) - Minute Book Report

This is a story about a boy named Jessie who
lives with his family in the countryside. He likes to draw and has been training all
summer to be the fastest runner in school. The Burke family moves in next door. Their
daughter, Leslie, is creative and smart and becomes Jessie's classmate.

When the big day of the race arrives at school,
however, Jessie gets beaten by Leslie. And at first, no one likes Leslie, but because
they are neighbors, they become friends. Jessie and Leslie begin to form a real friendship
around an imaginary land they call Terabithia. By swinging across the creek on a rope swing,
they enter a world where they are king and queen and go on numerous adventures.

It starts to rain, making it unsafe to travel
across the creek, but they continue to travel to Terabithia anyway. Jessie is invited to go to a museum with his
music teacher that he likes and has a great time. However, when he returns, he discovers
that Leslie had died in the creek. Jessie is shocked by all of this.

Leslie's
family moves away and Jessie uses some of their extra lumber to build a bridge across
the creek so that no one will ever fall again. Despite portraying the power of imagination
and the innocence of childhood, this is not really a children's book as it touches upon
various adult-related themes and challenges many of the social conventions established
in society. First of all, it displays unusual relationships
that children may not understand. Of course, by that fact alone, it does not make the book
false or bad, just, shall we say, unique.

For example, the relationship between Jessie
and the music teacher is strange. Jessie is attracted to the teacher and the way the story
is written, it seems that the teacher is attracted to Jessie. Maybe that's just how a boy his
age would think, but still, this can confuse a child. And while Jessie is at the age where opposite
sex attraction is normal, it does make readers wonder why he isn't infatuated with Leslie
a girl his own age, if that was the character trait that the author wanted to highlight? Another unusual relationship is between Leslie
and her parents.

They insist that she call them by their first names and they don't seem
to be parents in the conventional definition as much as they are her peers. These unusual relationships challenges the
reader's view on what real world relationships are like. Perhaps the author wanted to let
children know that they aren't the only ones who experience or see these types of relationships. This story also talks about spirituality,
both in the religious aspect and the more secular one.

Leslie goes to Easter service
with Jessie's family and after, asks about God. And while her questions are not provoking,
they do tear at paradoxes surrounding the Christian faith, like God's wrath and how
a loving God could also damn His children to hell. And of course, there is death. One of the
main characters in the story dies.

How is a child supposed to react to this? I mean,
really? How do children react to the death of someone they know? There doesn't seem to
be a real answer presented to us from the author, but maybe the lack of an answer through
Jessie's struggles to come to understand his situation is relatable enough for children. Many of these adult topics can fly over the
heads of children, but nevertheless, they are still there. We have adult-child romantic relationships,
child abuse, sibling abuse, religion, sexual curiosity, and unconventional parenting all
wrapped up within a story about a kid who likes to draw. Oh, and his best friend dies..