Bridge to Terabithia is a 1977 novel by Katherine Paterson. It has twice been adapted to film, first as a 1985 Made-for-TV Movie for PBS, and again as a 2007 theatrical film produced by Walden Media and distributed by Disney, starring Josh Hutcherson and AnnaSophia Robb and directed by Klasky-Csupo co-founder Gábor Csupó.
Jesse, the main character, is a young boy who lives in a small rural town, not too far from Washington, D.C. A bit of a loner, he practices running all summer so he can be the fastest in his grade at school. Being the fastest boy sure beats being the quiet boy who loves drawing more than he should.
However, on the first day of school, Jesse's new next-door neighbor, Leslie Burke, completely overtakes him. What starts as resentment and annoyance between the two turns into an extraordinary friendship, because Leslie is an extraordinary girl. With her gift for words, she and Jesse create a kingdom together in the nearby woods — a kingdom that they call "Terabithia," with a castle stronghold to fight imaginary monsters and plot battles to fight real monsters — starting an adventure that will completely change Jesse's world.
The story is known for its Bittersweet Ending and by proxy being a grade-A example of Death by Newbery Medal. It has been banned on more than one occasion for a supposed Teacher/Student Romance and other non-existent sexual content note as well as religious content and some swearing.
Bridge to Terabithia contains examples of:
- The '70s: The early post-Vietnam War era, referenced throughout the book but abandoned by the movie.
- A Boy and His X: A boy and his Platonic Life Partner girl. She even meets the same fate, with the same resulting Character Development for the boy, that's often seen in the animal version of this trope.
- Academic Athlete: Jesse thinks highly of Leslie Burke because she beat all the fifth grade boys in their race and she can impress teachers with her imaginative essays and ability to appear focused in class.
- Affluent Ascetic: The well-off Burkes moved from Arlington, a metropolitan city, to the countryside of Lark Creek. Leslie explains that her parents wanted to reexamine the material possessions of their lives, even forgoing a TV. It's subverted later on, as her father Bill says that they had moved into Lark Creek for Leslie's sake — after she dies, they move out again.
- All Just a Dream: Jesse initially believes that Leslie's death was this trope when he wakes up the next morning. Unfortunately, he's wrong.
- Aloof Big Brother: Jesse is one to May Belle, though he becomes less so by the end. Their two oldest sisters are also not pleasant.
- Alpha Bitch: Played with. Janice Avery is a female bully, but she's anything but the stereotypical blonde rich girl who relies on social manipulation. Instead, Janice is large, loud, and relies on physical intimidation, usually the realm of male bullies. She has a Freudian Excuse.
- Anger Born of Worry: Jesse has this reaction when he sees May Belle trapped on a fallen log across the river, while it's still roaring and high. He quickly goes to rescue her and pull her to the safety of the banks. As they catch their breath, she reveals she was following him because she noticed he was missing that morning and got scared. Jesse is more relieved that she didn't fall in the river the way that Leslie did.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: May Belle and Joyce Ann to Jesse. He gets better towards May Belle.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- May Belle is thrilled when her father goes to Washington and brings her back a package of Twinkies — so thrilled that on the school bus, she yells to her friend Billy Jean about having them in her lunch. This alerts Janice Avery, who steals the Twinkies. Jess and Leslie get their revenge by writing Janice a fake love letter from Willard Hughes and planting it in her desk. Later, they find her crying in the girl's room, and assume that it must be about their prank. It isn't; it's because she has an abusive father, and when she confided about it to her friends, they told the entire school.
- When Jesse gets back from the museum, we (and in the book, he) expect he's going to get in trouble for going to the museum without permission. (In the book, he knew full well his mother was half-asleep.) The truth is far worse.
- Belated Love Epiphany: Jesse has a crush on his teacher Ms. Edmunds and doesn't realize how much Leslie means to him until she dies.
- Big Brother Instinct: While Jesse doesn't challenge Janice directly in a fight, he and Leslie scheme to get revenge on Janice for stealing May Belle's Twinkies. Much later, he quickly runs to help her when she gets stuck on a fallen log trying to follow him to Terabithia.
- Big Brother Worship: May Belle to Jesse. Jesse finds it mostly annoying.
- Bittersweet Ending: Leslie dies while swinging on the rope to Terabithia, and Jesse blames himself for it. Luckily, Jesse's father helps him accept Leslie's death and convinces him that it's not his fault and to hold onto Leslie's friendship to keep her alive. Jesse returns to Terabithia, but builds the titular bridge, and takes his sister with him, offering her the title of princess.
- Blithe Spirit: Leslie, a new student whose imagination and general weirdness coaxes Jesse to have lots of fun and deal with his difficult circumstances.
- Calling Parents by Their Name: Leslie calls her parents Bill and Judy, and they insist that Jesse calls them by name too. Jesse finds himself uncomfortable with this, and takes a while to get used to it.
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Jesse gets hit with this hard when he doesn't invite Leslie with him and Ms. Edmunds to the art museum, and Leslie, when going to Terabithia by herself, drowns because she hit her head while falling.
- Changeling Fantasy: In-Universe, a disparaging comment from Brenda about Leslie leads Jesse to imagine that his dad found him in the creek, and that he really comes from a bookish family.
- Coming of Age Story: The protagonists are children and the story is about the two using their child fantasies as a way of dealing with the pressures of their everyday life. And in Jesse's case, mending relationships with family members and dealing with death.
- Cool Teacher: Miss Edmunds, the music teacher. It's played up more in the book, where it's established that the entire school strives for conformity and she's a bit of a hippie.
- Deadpan Snarker: Leslie shows shades of this in the novel, but not in the 2007 film.
- Death by Newbery Medal: One of the most famous textbook examples. While killing a little girl might seem a bit brash and unanticipated, the entire story is inspired by a real-life event where a friend of Paterson's son was struck dead by lightning at the age of 8.
- Due to the Dead: When Jesse goes back to Terabithia for the first time after Leslie's death, he makes a funeral wreath for her out of a pine branch and wildflowers and places it in Terabithia's "sacred grove."
- Everybody Knew Already: Jesse and Leslie assumed that they had a secret place in Terabithia to hide from the adults. His dad reveals that of course he and the Burkes knew that Jesse and Leslie were using the rope to get across the river in the shared backyard.
- First Love: Subtly implied with the friendship between Jesse and his friend Leslie, a girl who introduces him to the titular Terabithia, and this variety of the "special, sweet, innocent" type of first love, on both Jesse and Leslie's parts. Jesse doesn't realize it because he has a Precocious Crush on his music teacher, but when Leslie dies, it suddenly occurs to him just how much he loved Leslie.
- Five Stages of Grief: Jesse suffers these in alternating waves after Leslie dies in a very realistic sense. First there's denial, in the book because he knows Leslie is a good swimmer. Then he runs out in anger and kicks his wardrobe before going to bed. For a long time he pretends the news was just a bad dream and talks as if Leslie is alive, which doubles as bargaining, and then he lashes out at May Belle (in the book for asking if he saw Leslie's corpse at her house, in the movie for following him across the log; in the book, the log incident happens later, and he's more relieved she's okay) and dumps the paints Leslie gave him into the creek. He only breaks down into depression when his emotions catch up to him in the woods, as does his father, and afterwards, he finally comes to accept what happened.
- Foreign Exchange Student: Ms. Edmunds talks to Jesse about how she spent a year in Japan as an exchange student, and references the Japanese myth of Amaterasu when the sun comes out after a rainy day.
- Foreshadowing:
- Leslie's poem about scuba-diving, which foreshadows that she dies by drowning. The film makes this more apparent, with specific lines referencing the afterlife ("Above me, there's nothing but shimmery light, the place where I've come from, and will go back to when I am done here.") and Jesse coming to terms with her death ("I don't have as much time as I need to see everything, but that is what makes it so special.").
- At one point, Jesse is afraid Prince Terrien (the dog) may fall down during crossing and drown.
- Pretty blatantly at the Easter service, when May Belle asks Leslie "But what if you die, Leslie? What if you die?"
- Free-Range Children: Deconstructed. Because of the setting and time period, the kids can spend as much time as they like outside, provided they're home for dinner before the sun goes down. While Leslie comments that this means they have the freedom to create their own fun without any adults interfering or looking the other way when a bully is around, it also means there are some cases where the adults arrive too late to deal with a real emergency. Mr. Aarons in the film has a guilty look on his face when he tells Jesse that the adults knew the whole time about Jesse and Leslie using the rope to get across the river, and it's implied he blames himself for not replacing it or putting a sturdier crossing. If an adult had interfered, Leslie wouldn't have drowned.
- Gender-Blender Name: Leslie is androgynous enough that Jesse initially can't tell if she's a boy or a girl. When she introduces herself, it doesn't help much since she has "one of those names that can go either way."
- Gendered Insult: Brenda insults Leslie this way, saying that, "Nobody with any sense would call that stick a girl."
- Graceful Loser: Despite Leslie being faster than him, Jesse hides his bitterness about it because she thanks him for letting her race. They end up becoming friends.
- Hidden Depths: Revealed about a lot of characters Jesse doesn't get on with.
- Janice Avery, The Bully, has an abusive father.
- Mrs. Myers, the Stern Teacher, lost her husband.
- Jesse's family don't hate him, and are just overworked and stressed with their busy lives.
- Imagine Spot:
- Jesse's Changeling Fantasy, in which he imagines that he washed up in the creek and comes from a bookish family.
- After Leslie's death, Jesse imagines conversations with her about his trip to the museum.
- Innocently Insensitive: May Belle excitedly asks a distraught Jesse, who just went to Leslie's house with their parents to give their regards to her mourning family, if he saw Leslie's corpse.
- It's All My Fault: Jesse doesn't invite Leslie to the museum in order to have some alone time with Ms. Edmunds; Leslie dies crossing the rope swing to Terabithia alone the same day.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Jesse's father, Jesse Sr. He is very strict towards his son, and even harsh at times, but it's understandable given the family's level of poverty. He's also shown to be a good parent in spite of it all, and the scene where he comforts his son after Leslie's death is one of the more poignant moments, especially in the film.
- Language Drift: Most notably, at the time the book was written, girlfriend was two words.
- Longing for Fictionland: The main two characters create a fictional world called Terabithia to deal with their school troubles. They are aware that it is a fantasy and wish it were real, although this doesn't stop them for having fun. At the end of the book, Jesse brings his little sister into the fantasy, telling her she's a princess of Terebithia.
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Leslie fits the character type in that she's full of quirks, dresses oddly, as well as livening up Jesse's world, though it's downplayed in that fact that the two do not get romantically involved.
- Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Leslie is a tomboy, to the point that Jesse isn't sure whether she's a girl or a boy when they first meet, and though Jesse tries to seem masculine to fit in with the other boys and please his father, he's really a sensitive boy with a "girly" love for the arts.
- Middle Child Syndrome: Jesse gets a pretty bad deal out of this trope, since he's not only the very-middle child out of five, he's also the only boy. Not to mention his older sisters bully him and the youngest daughter is a particularly bratty baby; the only one who really likes him is May Belle, and even she gets annoying because she always wants to be around him, whether he wants it or not. Oh, and he's a "Well Done, Son" Guy to boot.
- Mistaken for Gay: One of the book's plot points, and the main source of conflict between Jesse and his dad. Set in the 70s, Jesse is into art and his only friend is a tomboyish girl, so his parents are quite uncomfortable with him spending so much time with Leslie. In turn, he's insecure about how others perceive him; he hides his art from everyone besides Ms. Edmunds and Leslie, and when asked to write about his hobby, he lies about being into football to fit in with the other boys. This is Adapted Out in the 2007 film adaptation.
- Mood Whiplash: After Jesse and Leslie befriend, they bond through their imagination to form the fantastical world of Terabithia. Then Leslie dies.
- Moving-Away Ending: The Burkes moved into Lark Creek shortly before the events of the story, but at the end, they move away, because they had only moved into the country for Leslie's sake.
- My Greatest Second Chance: Jesse blames himself for not being there when Leslie fell, because he was at the art museum with his teacher and admits he didn't want her to join him. When May Belle gets trapped on a fallen log, Jesse is scared about her falling into the river the way Leslie did. He quickly pulls her to safety, and is relieved she wasn't hurt. This convinces him to introduce May Belle to Terabithia.
- The Namesake: The titular "bridge" finally appears in the last chapter, when Jesse builds it.
- New Transfer Student: Leslie shows up the first day of fifth grade, her parents having moved to Lark Creek from Arlington.
- Never Got to Say Goodbye: Jesse to Leslie, since he's in Washington D.C. with Miss Edmunds when she drowns. When he learns that her parents have had her cremated without giving him a chance to see her body, he's even more upset.
- Never Trust a Title: There is no literal bridge to Terabithia until Jesse builds one in the last chapter. For most of the story, he and Leslie reach Terabithia by swinging on a rope across the creek bed, until the day the rope breaks and Leslie falls into the creek and drowns. On the other hand, in the metaphorical sense, Leslie herself could be considered the bridge for Jesse.
- Non-Indicative Title: Subverted with chapter 10, which is titled "The Perfect Day." For most of the chapter, it's seemingly played straight...but the final line suddenly makes it anything but that.
- OOC Is Serious Business:
- Jesse's family is rather hard on him, with his older sisters often teasing him and his parents being distant. When Leslie dies, and they realize Jesse doesn't know, they all noticeably lighten up on him. Mrs. Aarons makes Jesse pancakes and gives him seconds, and his older sisters give him space to grieve. Most notably, Mr. Aarons stops being so aloof and comforts Jesse directly. He spends the rest of the story doing Jesse's chores, not punishing him for hitting May Belle in a fit of anger, and giving him a Cooldown Hug when his son has a breakdown in the woods.
- In the film, Mr. and Mrs. Aarons tell Jesse he needs to help out more with the chores after his dad needs to take more shifts. Normally, Jesse would fuss about this. Instead, he smiles and quotes what Leslie's parents said while they painted the living room. This baffles his mother and father.
- Outdoorsy Gal: Leslie invites Jesse to swing over the riverbed to discover the land of Terabithia.
- Outliving One's Offspring: In the end, Leslie’s parents move away and take her ashes with them.
- Passing the Torch: In the end, Jesse decides it's time to move on from Terabithia and live life to the fullest in the real world. But he introduces his little sister May Belle to Terabithia, makes her its new "queen," and urges her to share it with their youngest sister Joyce Ann when she's old enough.
- Passionate Sports Girl: Leslie is better at running than the boys and is teased for it, but makes a friend in the main character, who got her the chance to run.
- Parents as People: Leslie talks with Jesse about how she's beginning to understand her father Bill more as a person by working with him on renovating their house. Jesse is confused by the prospect, thinking that parents aren't people he needs to understand so much as obey. This changes as he begins to spend more time with Bill and comes to understand him as a person, and then after Leslie's death, when he works through his grief with his previously-aloof father.
- Pet the Dog: How Jesse's father treats him after Leslie dies, and Mrs. Myers comforting him about it.
- Precocious Crush: Jesse has a crush on his music teacher, Ms. Edmunds.
- Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: There's the music teacher Miss Edmunds who is described as having long swishy black hair and blue, blue eyes. Lord, she was gorgeous.
- Reality Is Unrealistic: The real-life inspiration for Leslie was Katherine Paterson's son's childhood friend, Lisa Hill, who was killed by a lightning strike on a sunny day while climbing some rocks on a beach. The author originally intended to finish off Leslie the same way but ultimately changed it to a drowning because her editor felt it would be more believable. Probably right, but ironic.
- Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Played for Drama. Jesse goes out on a field trip with Ms. Edmunds, only telling May Belle and his half-asleep mother. When they get the news that Leslie drowned in the creek, Jesse's family assumes that he went with her, and he returns from the field trip to find them mourning for him.
- Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Jesse is an introverted artist, Leslie is outgoing and imaginative.
- Secret Message Wink:
- Jesse' baby sister Joyce Ann bursts into tears, worried Santa won't know how to bring gifts to their chimney-less house. As Jesse reassures her that Santa knows the way, he winks at his wiser sister May Belle to tell her that he bought all their Christmas gifts.
- When Jesse helps Leslie and her parents redo a room, Leslie calls the room "worthy of..." Jesse looks up, fearing she'll let the secret of Terabithia slip, but she finishes with "...of a palace." She looks over to Jesse and winks, reassuring him that Terabithia is still their secret.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: Understated. Neither Leslie nor Jesse say this trope out loud, but there are points that Elle's and Brenda's innuendo about the two of them makes them both uncomfortable. Of course, from Jesse's point of view, having a girlfriend entails being Sickening Sweethearts.
- Shout-Out:
- Ms. Edmunds references the Japanese myth of the sun (Amaterasu) hiding in a cave.
- The name "Terabithia" derives from "Terabinthia", a location in the Narnia series. In the book, Leslie explicitly compares their hidden kingdom to Narnia, even giving Jesse some of the novels and telling him to read them.
- Survivor's Guilt: Jesse doesn't invite Leslie to the museum and she dies as a result. Jesse is understandably broken up over it.
- Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Leslie is a ray of sunshine in Jesse's dreary life, becoming his Only Friend. She dies suddenly towards the end.
- Too Happy to Live: Leslie is eternally optimistic and the most cheerful character in the story. Of course she's going to die.
- Tragic Keepsake: After Leslie dies, Mr. Burke apologizes to Jesse for wanting to keep Prince Terrien. He says he knows that the puppy was Jesse's gift to his daughter, but he can't give the dog up. Jesse reassures him that Leslie would have wanted him to keep P.T..
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Ms. Edmunds invites Jesse to come to the art museum with her, and Jesse doesn't invite Leslie, sealing her fate. Jesse knows this and regrets it. Although technically if she hadn't invited Jess, there's the possibility he could have died with Leslie.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Jesse's relationship with his father.
- Wham Line: "Your girl friend's dead, and Momma thought you was dead too." Driven home further when the next chapter is simply titled “No!”
- Worth It: Jesse thinks his "perfect day" with Miss Edmunds will be worth whatever punishment he gets from his parents. Unfortunately, punishment is the least of his problems.