FernFolio

Eleven year-old Jess Aaron’s life is a hard one. The family farm can’t support them, so he and his four sisters and parents struggle to make ends meet on what his father can earn working in construction. They are a poor family in a community of poor families; money is tight and there is rarely any left over for anything beyond the bare necessities. Jess, an artist and a dreamer, is expected to help out at home with the milking and with chopping wood for the stove. His parents cannot understand his preoccupation with drawing and are irritated, at times, by the fact that he draws “the way some people drink whiskey”. Jess’ life at school is no better; he has few friends among his classmates, and cannot imagine how he is going to survive another eight years.
The arrival of Leslie Burke in Jess’ life changes everything. The daughter of well-educated, freethinking hippy writers, whom she calls Bill and Judy, Leslie dresses and talks and acts in ways that at first shock and then attract Jess. When he defends her against their schoolmates, Jess and Leslie begin to be friends, but their friendship really blossoms after they find Terabithia, a stretch of land in the woods that they reach by swinging across a creek on an old length of rope. Leslie decides that she and Jess will be king and queen of Terabithia. Drawing upon her favourite books and stories, she opens for him the world of the imagination. Through Leslie, Jess realises that he is not alone in his need to feed his heart and mind and spirit. In Leslie, Jess finds the other half of his soul.
When tragedy strikes, Jess must re-evaluate all that he is and all that his friendship with Leslie has taught him. He discovers within him the strength and courage and purpose to take her lessons and make them his own.
It has been many years since I last read Katherine Paterson’s Bridge to Terabithia. I am struck, again, by the power and beauty of this story. It is one to be read and discussed and wept over.
FernFolio Editor