Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

 

Title: Bridge to Terabithia 

Genre: Fiction 

Author: Katherine Paterson 

Major Awards: Newbery Medal 

Age group: 8 to 12 years old 

 

Summary: 

This novel by Katherine Paterson was about the unexpected and unforgettable friendship between Jess Aaron and Leslie Burke. Jess tries to hide his insecurity by trying to be the fastest runner in his entire grade, but Leslie outruns him and all the boys. This doesn’t help them start on the right foot for their friendship at all but after this they become best of friends. They create Terabithia, an imaginative world where Leslie is the queen and Jess the king. This place helps them get away from all the negativity at school and helps Jess with his insecurities and family’s issues. 

At the end of the story, Leslie passes away trying to get to Terabithia. Jess is extremely sad and doesn’t think he could go on without Leslie. However, he decides to keep living like Leslie was still there with him and decides to build a bridge to get to Terabithia. He decides to introduce his little sister to Terabithia, and she becomes the new queen. 

Evaluation: 

Appropriate grade levels would be 4^th to 7^th grade. 

Surprisingly, I had never read this class book ever in my life and I am so glad I read it for this project. Now I know why it is so important for literature and why they have even created a film for it. The imagination in this world takes you into a different world, not the worlds that science fiction takes you, but just to a different type of imagination. 

I will definitely use this book if I get assigned to older elementary grades because it teaches students many different themes, such as friendship. This is a great book to use for reading comprehension because of the different characters and the just a different setting than usual books.