used to be one of my favorite movies when I was young, I forgot how sad it was. The book is almost the same like the movie, nothing more or less, however I cried just like I did when I saw the movie for the first time.

This is absolutely a great book. I loved to read it!

I don't know if you ever watch the film from 2007, if you do, but you haven't read the book, I can tell you that the movie is a good adaptation BUT it can mislead you in the "fantasy" factor, even I used that label in my review but only because, at this moment, I don't have a better label to describe the book in a fair way.

I tell you all that since in the film, they gave a lot of emphasis and screen time to all "those magic creatures", however, they don't exist, in the book, the kids are really clear on that, they are playing sure, but they don't start to watch magic creatures from the thin air, they just using something called "imagination".

I tell you that too, just to make you understand that if you want to read this book expecting something in the style of Harry Potter or Narnia, you will get a real disappointment, BUT if you are looking to read an amazing, coming-to-age story, you will read one of the best books in that area, genre and/or topic.

Due to clumsy reasons, this great book has been banned in many libraries. What I can tell you is that the kids here talk and think in a very real and honest way, so I don't think that can be a good reason to ban this book.

This is a truly great novel about growing, about maturing, about the impossibility of controlling life and that you have to treasure each moment that you are living since you never know when something will change forever.

Also, you won't understand the reason for the title of this book until you read it, but please, don't do any research or investigation, since the impact of the story depends of that you don't know anything ahead.

This is a short book, just read it and it will live in your heart forever.

I think this is a perfect little book. It hits every note like a clear bell ringing out to your soul calling your to the importance of life. It won the Newbery Medal and it deserves that medal. This is a love story about two friends, Jesse and Leslie. There is no dating, or kissing - there is just this deep underlying connection with another person who gets you. This book made me cry in the best way possible. I am so glad I gave this little book a chance. It's a Marvel.

This, along with Where the Red Fern Grows, probably impacted me the most growing up. The really good books, regardless of genre or audience, make such an imprint on you that you can recall certain lines or moments with perfect clarity. This books so perfectly renders its characters, settings, and imagination of these two characters that it simply takes your breath away. As I recall, her prose is not flowery and ornate, but as plain and simple as Jess, and as life-changing as Leslie. It's the classic coming of age story, but whatever conventions it might rely on are washed away by the story she crafts around them. For anyone who knows what it's like not to fit in, and for everyone who doesn't, you need to read this book, or at the very least, make your children read it.

Janusz Korczak Medal (Poland) 1981
Silver Pencil Award (Netherlands) 1981
Newbery Medal 1978
ALA Notable Children's Books 1977
School Library Journal Best Book of 1977
Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, 1978
Le Grand Prix des Jeunes Lecturs (France), 1986
1986 Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award

Note also that on the American Library Association Reading List: Bridge to Terabithia (along with Tuck Everlasting) is one of six books recommended for 9-12 year-old children. This is especially heartening since “the novel's content has been the frequent target of censors and appears at number nine on The American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books for the decade 1990–2000.” (Wikipedia)Apparently, the banning, which occurred after year 2000 as well, was for offensive language, sexual content and Occult/Satanism.

There are a few mild swear words in the book, and they are merely used for emphasis. If having a crush on a girl means the book contains sexual content, and if creating a magic kingdom (Terabithia) in which to play at being king and queen means dabbling in the occult or Satanism, well… need I say more?

Death and what happens to a person after dying are also discussed in the book. Perhaps some adults think children shouldn’t read about death. Personally, I commend Patterson for writing a moving story for children that addresses adult themes, and yet is never condescending.

I read this book as an adult, wishing I had read it when I was younger. Of course, I may have cried harder then. Highly recommended for readers from ages 9 and up – all the way up – to adulthood and through old age!

Lines I loved:

Lark Creek was the backwash of fashion. It took them a long time to accept there what everyone could see by their TV’s was OK anywhere else.

It made Jess ache inside to watch his dad grab the little ones to his shoulder, or lean down and hug them. It seemed to him that he had been thought too big for that since the day he was born.

It was the beginning of a new season in his life, and he chose deliberately to make it so.

Gary Fulcher could go to you-know-where and warm his toes.

Even a prince may be a fool.

All the way home in the sunshine Miss Edmunds told funny stories about going to college one year in Japan, where all the boys had been shorter than she, and she hadn’t known how to use the toilets.

They weren’t crying for Leslie. They were crying for themselves. Just themselves.

Jess knew; but still, but still, at the bus stop he looked up, half expecting to see her running up across the field.

He could hear the sounds of the whispers but not the words. Not that he wanted to hear the words.

It was up to him to pay back to the world in beauty and caring what Leslie had loaned him in vision and strength.

I'd been resolutely avoiding this book ever since I was a child.

It was often recommended in the same breath as Where the Red Fern Grows, and although I could tell from the description of Bridge to Terabithia that I would probably like it, as a 9-(ish?)-year-old I'd been devastated by Where the Red Fern Grows and couldn't bear another nostalgic book of heartbreaking loss.

Fast-forward over a decade of successful book avoidance, and I'm watching the 2007 film adaptation in the theater and crying silently in my seat. I mean tears are flowing down my face unchecked as I watch. The story, the friendship between Leslie and Jess, is beautiful. So I knew I had to read it.

This is a great book, but honestly, the movie is great too. It's one of the few examples I'll hold up of a film version being every bit as good as the original book.

I enjoyed revisiting this childhood classic. I first read it at the recommendation of our local librarian when I was in 5th grade. I remember being a bit annoyed with her afterward because it made me cry. Hearing the story now 26 years later and knowing what to expect, I still got teary-eyed.

The audio version contains an interview with the author and her son, which I found quite interesting. Having first read the book at age 10, I didn't pay much attention to the dedication page. Apparently, though, Katherine Paterson wrote this book based upon the experiences of her own son who, at 8 years old, lost his childhood best friend to a tragic accident (she was struck by lightning -- how awful). Learning that Paterson wrote this story in part to help her son grieve and make sense of such a painful loss made the story all the more touching to me somehow.

While heart-breaking, Bridge to Terabithia is a lovely story that is ultimately about the power of love and friendship.

I remember reading this when I was very young (thanks, Julie!). I couldn't remember particulars of the story, but the impact of the book never left me.

Currently in a re-reading phase, I was curious to see how I would feel about the book now.....more than 30 years after it was first published. To say that "it has stood the test of time" would be a disservice. And the impact? To borrow from @ericsmithrocks: "ugly crying".

Knowledge, in this case, was not power. It still felt like a punch-to-the-gut-from-out-of-nowhere. Sadness seeped into my soul and I sobbed.

Well done, Ms. Paterson. Well. Done.

Bridge to Terabithia, while quite an easy read, is replete with life's lessons, especially on loss, death, and friendships. The plot centers around the friendship between its main protagonists, fifth-graders Jess Aarons and Leslie Burke, who, together, create an imaginary kingdom they christen Terabithia, where they would escape and pretend to be royalty. That is, until tragedy strikes...

They're not really school outcasts per se, but Jess and Leslie find comfort in each other's company ~ a situation I can completely relate to, having a lot of acquaintances but very few close (and true) friends. The book also dealt much with teenage and peer problems, family and money issues, and annoying siblings (especially this!) ~ realities that every single one of us are bound to encounter sometime in our lives, one way or another. This is enough reason for me to like the book.

One thing though, that didn't quite sit well with me was the fact that Leslie called her parents by their first names -- Bill and Judy -- which, no matter how hard I try to reconcile with culture and tradition, came off as disrespectful and crass. Maybe it's just the conventional me that's speaking here, but I think that, no matter how liberated or "cool" a family may be, it's just not right to call your parents by their first names. It's too casual, and much too disrespectful for my taste.

I also thought there was a hidden sexual attraction between Jess and his music teacher, Miss Edmunds, which the author (wisely) chose not to belabor upon. Practically every one of us has his/her own pet crushes on one of our mentors during the day, I'm sure, but for Miss Edmunds to actually ask Jess to go with her to a museum one day, and to justify paying for Jess' meal by saying that when she asks "a man out", she gets to pay for the food (or something to that effect)... Well. Something just starts to tick in my brain.

All in all though, it was an OK book. Nothing exceptional, nothing bad, either.

Bridge to Terabithia is a staple of many middle school literary curriculums; however, it is one of the most challenged books in school systems across the country. Opponents of this book preposterously assert that it has references to witchcraft and Satanism. I read this book in 5th grade and gathered no references to the use of magic at all. The book involves two children having imaginary adventures in the imaginary land of Terabithia. Such imaginary games are common for children. Yet some assert that Katherine Patterson’s writing about such common activities is a reference to witchcraft. The book is an amazing piece of children’s literature and one of the only pieces from fifth and sixth grade a number of my peers remember reading. It stood out to us. We remembered it and used it to become better writers and thinkers. It helped us transition to more complex books. Educators and teachers should advocate strongly for this book to be read in class.
tPatterson instills into this book many important thematic elements of a great story in a manner that younger students will be able to identify with some thought on the book. Foreshadowing, character development, symbolism, and a clear connected thread and purpose are present throughout the whole story as Jess makes friends with the new girl Leslie, learns important lessons from her that help him to become more confident, and then is forced to say goodbye when she dies entering their imaginary land of Terabithia.
tTo an older reader, the foreshadowing of Leslie’s death is a little heavy-handed, but in no way poorly presented to a younger audience. “Sometimes it seemed to him that his life was as delicate as a dandelion. One little puff from any direction and it was blown to bits” (Paterson, 99). When May Belle becomes horrified of Leslie’s independent thoughts on the authenticity of the Bible, she exclaims, “What’s going to happen if you die?” (Paterson 109). Paterson makes the readers contemplate Leslie’s death briefly and insincerely several times before forcing them to do it for real. When she dies, they must revisit those thoughts they’d only touched on. “The Perkins place was one of those ratty old country houses you moved into because you had no decent place to go and moved out as quickly as you could” (Paterson 10). If the reader takes this passage seriously, they must know that the Burkes will leave Jess, in one way or another. After Leslie’s death the Burkes do leave. “No one ever stayed in the old Perkins place” (Paterson 161). As a result of this heavy foreshadowing, the books overall tone adopts one of reflection, as opposed to simple telling, a story that had to be told, that demanded to be told. Patterson’s accomplishment here is powerful to a child’s appreciation of literature and their ability to deceiver more complex literature later.
tAnother interesting literary event that young readers can benefit from analyzing is Jess’s evolution as a person, especially with regard to Terabithia’s changes.

It was Leslie who had taken him from the cow pasture into Terabithia and turned him into a king. He had thought that was it. Wasn’t king the best you could be? Now it occurred to him that perhaps Terabithia was like a castle where you came to be knighted. After you stayed for a while and grew strong you had to move on. For hadn’t Leslie, even in Terabithia, tried to push back the walls of his mind and make him see beyond to the shining world-huge and terrible and beautiful and very fragile?...Now it was time for him to move out (Paterson 160).

Jess is simply not the same person he was at the beginning of the book and what logically follows is that Terabithia is not the same place to him that it was. Concurrently, he must move out. A heavy handed indication of Jess’s transition occurs with his father near the entrance to Terabithia. His father begins, “‘Hell ain’t it?’ It was the kind of thing Jess could hear his father saying to another man. He found it strangely comforting, and it made him bold.” (Paterson 148). In the beginning, Jess’ father would barely speak a word to him. Jess relationship with his father has changed as well.
On the same note, children can benefit from seeing the method for entering Terabithia changing with Jess and with Terabithia’s significance to Jess. In the beginning, entering Terabithia involves a scary trip swinging across a river on a rope. In the end, Jess builds a bridge to Terabithia, changing one of its key characteristics and symbolizing the increased ease Jess has with accessing what he learned from Terabithia. In the end, Jess seeks to open Terabithia’s lessons to his younger sister, Joyce Ann. “And when he finished, he put flowers in [Joyce Ann’s] hair and led her across the bridge-the great bridge into Terabithia-which might look to someone with no magic in them like a few planks across a nearly dry gully…” Jess leads Joyce Ann into this kingdom of learning and evolution, a confident adolescent, just as the confident Leslie had done for him once. He has learned from Leslie, about himself and his insecurities, and about life, and can share these lessons with Joyce Ann.
tAlso valuable as classroom discussion is what parallels, if any, Leslie has with Jesus. Certainly a Christ archetype is present in many works and discussion of such can benefit students. As with so many literary elements, it is hard to say whether the author intended this parallel, but that idea is unimportant except to express it to the students. Leslie makes ambiguous comments at the beginning of the book about how she likes and dislikes the country. Jess is talking to her about her old home. “I really miss it.” She replies. “You must hate it here” (Patterson 41) he says. She says she does. “I wanted to come too” (Paterson 42) she says, talking of her parents’ decision to move. Her contradicting sentiments parallel Jesus’ experience in the garden of Gethsemane, where he asks god to save him from his impending crucifixion, but exclaims truly that he is glad to do it if it is God’s will. One could argue that her playing with the boys and running faster than them is analogous to Jesus’ miracles. Her challenging people’s interpretations of the Bible is another possible parallel. Also, Jess describes her arrival as “probably the biggest thing in his life” (Paterson 10). She dies as a result of coming, as a result of ultimately helping Jess transition from an insecure introspective adolescent into a more confident man. This is a weaker thematic element, and perhaps Paterson did not intend it, but its presence is something that may be discussed briefly in the classroom.
tSomeone unfamiliar with this book may think that these elements are too complex for younger readers; however, Paterson presents them expertly to a younger audience while engaging the students with a character they can relate to, Jess. He is constantly introspective, thinking not only about an issue, but on his thoughts on the issue too. He frequently wonders why he is thinking that way, leading him deeper and deeper into his mind. He has feelings for Ms. Edmund that he does not yet understand as well. The beginning of the book is hard focused on portraying Jess as having external suffering as well “Ever since he’d been in first grade he’d been that “ ‘crazy little kid that draws all the time’” (Paterson 4). The number of sentences used to portray this manner of suffering almost rivals his introspective lamentations, and establishes a character that many confused early adolescents can not help but identify with and cheer on. If this element commands girls’ attentions less, then Leslie’s charisma is more than enough to bridge the gap. The use of swear words helps to prevent children from resenting the book and closing their minds to it simply because children at that age are told not to swear. This book swears? Wow, that must be cool. I want to read on. And they do. And more importantly, they listen to what they are reading.
tBridge to Terabithia is not a book of separate literary elements, but rather elements that play beautifully and deftly together to create a complete literary work, one to help children transition to more complex literature and to make them think of new ideas. It should be staple of every early middle school English education regardless of objections that may be voiced against it. If this book is not on your child’s curriculum, it is worth your time to ask why and challenge such a decision. Afterwards, you and your child should read it together. You’ll both enjoy it.

I don't remember how old of a child I was when I read this book, but I do remember it was the first story to break my heart.

I vividly remember closing the novel after the final page and putting it back on my shelf, where it stayed for many, many years.

Sure, it was the pain. But more than that, I didn't want to break the spell: the magical green and golden glow that always filled my mind's eye at the thought of Terabithia.

Just this week, I decided to read it again.

And, man. It's beautiful as ever. I "read" this as an audiobook driving home from work each night, and I cried more than I'd like to admit.

So, so good.