Short Summary Of Bridge to Terabithia

I read Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson. The genre for this novel is realistic fiction and it is 128 pages in length. The year this book was published was October 21, 1977. The book takes place in Lark Creek. The book starts in the late 1970s. In the book there is a kid named Jess, Jess has four sisters, Joyce Ann Aarons, May Belle, Ellie, and Brenda Aarons. They all live on a farm with a cow field. Every day Jess goes out and gets milk so there mom can cook breakfast. Jess goes to a school called Lark Creek Elementary. At his school he has a music teacher named Miss Edmunds, Jess really likes Miss Edmunds. In the book there is people who are moving into the Old Perkins place which is Jesse's neighbors. The new people who move in have a daughter named Leslie. At Lark Creek in class Leslie comes in and the principal introduces her to the class. Then the teacher pulled up a desk close to the teachers desk. When it became break all the boys met up to race each other, Jess had been practicing all summer long so he can be the fastest kid in the elementary. When they lined up to race Leslie joined in and everyone except Jess told her she wasn't aloud to race with them. Jess actually defended Leslie and told them if they were afraid to race to a girl. Then they started the race and Leslie beat all of them. Once school was over and they got off the bus Leslie thanked Jess for defending her. And then they went home. The next day they got on the bus May Belle was holding up a twinkie that she got from there dad and Jess told her to put it down before something happens to it but she didn’t listen. So went to break Janice Avery, the bully in the school, stole May Belle’s snack and May Belle told Jess to get back but Jess could not get it back because if he tried he would get beat up or get suspended for hitting a girl. So he told May Belle that she shouldn’t of been bragging about and waving it in the air for everyone to see.

When they got on the bus Janice Avery acted like she Jess tripped her and the bus driver told Jess to get off the bus and walk home. So jess did and he had to walk all the way back home. When he got home, Leslie and May Belle was waiting on him and Leslie told him that they should have their own place to go to. May Belle wanted to go to, but they did not want her to come with them so Jess told her no and to go home and Leslie told May Belle that she would give her a doll if she goes home so May Belle did. Then Leslie and Jess ran into the woods and found a rope hanging from a tree with a river across where the rope was hanging and Leslie said “what if we had a town and the only way to get to it is by swinging on this rope”and so Leslie swung on the rope and then Jess did and they found a good spot and called it terabithia and then they got some supplies and made a shelter to keep them from getting wet in the rain.

The next few days they went to school did what they usually do and then every day they got off the bus they would go to terabithia where Leslie was a queen and Jess was a king. Then it started raining a lot witch made the river rise and Jess said to Leslie “maybe we should do something else today”and so they went to Leslie’s house and helped her dad paint the wall in one of the rooms.then a couple days after that Jess got a call from Miss Edmunds and Miss Edmunds asked if he wanted to go to a museum with her and so he asked his mom and his mom said yes. When Miss Edmunds picked him up and drove off he forgot to ask Leslie if she wanted to come. So when they got back from the museum Jess walked inside his house and everyone just looked at him with a sad face and his dad said that his friend was dead. Jess thought they were lying and he barged out the door and ran off but his dad went after him and stopped him. Then he took him to the funeral at Leslie's house. After the funeral Jess went to the rope, the rope was broken and snapped off so Jess made a bridge to terabithia and took May Belle there and called her the new queen. The theme of this book is that friendship is the most important thing in a child's life.