I saw a movie trailer for Bridge to Terabithia (in theaters now). The name brought back memories of school librarians and Newbery Medal books (the book was awarded a Newbery in 1978). The title of the book was so familiar, yet I can't recall having actually read it. Was it one of the books read out loud to us at school? I don't think so, because I remember so many of them so well: Charlotte's Web, The Whipping Boy, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
The movie trailer I saw was packed with CGI fantasy shots- I figured I'd want to watch it sooner or later, so I ordered a copy of the book, Bridge to Terabithia, and began to read. I liked what I found from the very first page. Superb prose plunked the reader right into protagonist Jesse's running shoes. His bleak home and school life were rendered with just the right details to make the character and the world hyper realistic.
Two things really surprised me about Bridge to Terabithia. First- it wasn't a fantasy. Sure, fantasy readers will find homages to C.S. Lewis as Leslie makes up stories for Jesse in their make-believe magical kingdom. But Terabithia isn't a fantasy world the children travel to, and it's not even the patch of unused farmland where they play. Terabithia is a state of mind, one which Jesse would have never discovered if Leslie Burke hadn't moved in next door.
This brings me to the second big surprise- I can't imagine my elementary school librarian recommending this book to Midwestern kids- but I know she did! According to Wikipedia, the book ranks #9 on a list of Most Frequently Challenged Books (1990-2000) by the American Library Association. Author Katherine Patterson was writing in the late seventies. She writes plainly about poverty and ignorance in rural America, she talks about the Vietnam war and about hippies. She makes it clear that Jesse's father disapproves of his drawing, because dad thinks it shows a leaning toward homosexuality. Leslie and her family don't believe in God- and Jesse's little sister asks quite plainly whether Leslie will be damned to hell when she dies.
Bridge to Terabithia has probably survived these challenges and remained in the cannon of children's literature because it does such a good job of capturing the psyche of childhood- small hopes, like being the best runner in the 5th grade, magnified to importance it could only have for a youngster. Patterson's execution of Jesse's character arc is a powerful story of growing up, and touches readers young and old. His cohort and Queen in Terabithia, Leslie, brings the books, the colors, the imagination needed to ignite his growth.
I'll never forget Jesse Oliver Aarons. Life was unfair to him again and again, but he was able to take "not fair" as a matter of course and keep doing what he had to do- which, as it turns out, was to become a young man.
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