Bridge to Terabithia by katherine paterson

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 17,2025

Even when I was 12, I thought this was a crap book.

What's with all the hype? This was so fucking boring. I read this in 6th grade, during a time when I was prone to sobbing at anything. We watched Ben Hur in class and I cried like a baby. I don't even remember why.

We read Where the Red Fern Grows aloud in class and I was sobbing in front of everyone. I didn't shed a single fucking tear for this book.

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SaraSlurpsCoffee

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 17,2025

Unlike most readers here, I learned about this book only after my teenage years. I envy those who were able to read it when they were young. I will compensate for it, though, by giving this book to my future son or daughter, as I think that this is a book that all kids should read.

Creating secret hideouts in the woods with intricate details was one of my favorite hobbies when I was young. A few books by Enid Blyton acted as a catalyst for this behavior. So when I read about the magical kingdom of Terabithia, many nostalgic thoughts passed through my mind.

Jess Aarons and Leslie Burke will transport you to a new world through the marvelous writing of Katherine Paterson.

Can children’s books make an adult cry? Please read Bridge to Terabithia. You will instantly get an answer to the above question.

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SilentMuse

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 17,2025

Quick update from 2/19/22: We finally watched the movie (2007) they made of this classic. We enjoyed it immensely, and I love the visual magic they brought to the world of Terabithia. I'm happy to report, though, that it was not the sob fest for us that the book was. I found the movie a lot easier to bear than the written story.

Original review:
I'm heading out into the backyard now, in the dark, with a flashlight, a shovel, and my paperback copy of Bridge to Terabithia. I'm going to be careful not to dig a hole in the same place where I've buried Old Yeller, but to give this book its very own sacred burial space.

When I come back inside, I will inform my 11-year-old daughter that we are never going to talk about this book again.

“Never,” she will say.

We will look at each other and nod in agreement. We will never talk about this book again.

Sometimes it seemed to him that his life was delicate as a dandelion. One little puff from any direction, and it was blown to bits.

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screwballer

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 17,2025

When I read this in fourth grade, I loved it because it was enchanting, and reminded me very much of 'secret hideouts' I made with friends at the same age. When I read it again later in life, aloud to my younger brother and sister ages 10 and 12, I was choking back tears to keep reading aloud, and they were crying. If you've never read it (or, I suppose now, seen the movie) beware, this review is a spoiler! What I have learned from this book is that our assumptions about children and what is "appropriate" for them are seriously flawed. We assume they need color, fantasy, and bling, and that they can't deal with "hard" topics like death and, oh, speaking of that, life. Kids are people too. And they do understand and can deal with hard topics in many ways better than us adults, who have learned to choke back the tears instead of actually crying. When I was a kid going to my secret hideouts, I wasn't just playing, I was escaping. If kids don't understand real life, then why do they run from it, then, as in this book (and in real life) gain life-altering skills while "away" and come back stronger? I may choke back tears now, but when I was 10, I went to my secret hideouts to cry and deal with things in my own way, in my own world, just like Leslie and Jesse do in Terabithia.

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Mai_P

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 17,2025

Oh I loved this book too! Its so sweet, and sad and wonderful. I cried.

My teacher read it out loud in my 5th grade class and when the character died, I turned to the little boy next to me , and said, "That's not true is it?" and he looked at me with tears in his eyes and nodded. It was probably one of the first mature interactions I ever had with an "icky" boy.

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SimpleHufflepuff

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 17,2025

You would think that even after seeing the movie and knowing how this ends I wouldn't cry, but here I am.
This book was very enjoyable! I can't remember if I read it as a kid, but it was definitely worth reading now that I'm older.
The writing is pretty and gives you a very country-vibe with vibrant imagery and cozy settings, but I felt like the characters lacked a lot of description. Maybe it’s a children’s book and i’m not used to the shorter pace, but it felt like a lot more needed to be fleshed out. The relationships between the characters. Day-to-day activities. Dialogue scenes. It all just happened very quickly and it was hard to gauge how much time was actually passing, and it felt like the characters and plot were progressing faster than they probably actually were.
I really need to pick up more children’s classics because reading a book written and presumably set in the 70s was so captivating! References to the Vietnam war and the fearlessness about talking about religion and God was just something I rarely see today, and adding in details so particular to the time period almost 50 years ago now was just very cool!
I couldn’t get the movie out of my head when I read this, even though I haven’t seen the movie in years. Baby josh hutcherson is so precious that I think it added a spark to the book just seeing his face in my mind. However, comparing the book to the movie was a little bit detrimental because I think I liked the movie a little more? Just because it took more time to flesh out the characters and add detail to the world of Terabithia, whereas in the book Terabithia was, ironically, rather underexplained.
I loved how it described Jess as having a nervous gut. There were references to Jess having anxiety in this and i’m glad it wasn’t portrayed as something like HE NEEDS TO MAN UP! HE’S AFRAID OF SWIMMING AND HIS DAD PUTS A LOT OF PRESSURE ON HIM TO BE PERFECT, HE SHOULD BE THE MAN OF THE FAMILY! Instead it’s approached as if fear and shyness is natural and you need to work through it organically, and I thought that was really beautiful and encouraging.

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hcoctopus2

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 17,2025

This is one of the books that taught me that Books Can Hurt. It was part of what I now consider to be my fourth grade teacher's reign of terror - she read Where the Red Fern Grows and Bridge to Terabithia out loud to us (and those are just the books I was in her class for), and I seriously think she did it for the days when, inevitably, the entire class would spend the afternoon weeping at our desks.

That said, though - and it needed to be said - this is a good book; it was so engaging to me at that age that I got it from the library after the first day she read it to us and finished it by myself later that night. (Admittedly, this was not uncommon behavior for me. I did not like reading at other people's paces.) Of course, this meant I got to cry twice, and also spend the intervening time trying not to cry because I knew what was coming.

The characters are engaging. The story is memorable even 25 years later. But this is the book that taught me two important lessons: do not trust Katherine Paterson as far as you can see her, and do not trust fourth grade teachers, either.

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