Bridge to Terabithia

Paterson, Katherine. (2006). Bridge to Terabithia. Illus. Donna Diamond. New York, New York: Harper Entertainment..

Jess Aarons is a lonely fifth grader at Lark Creek Elementary School. His dream is to be the fastest runner in the school and win the affection of his busy father. Leslie Burke becomes his neighbor and gives him the friendship and the creativity that he has been longing for. They build an imaginary world just over the creek called Terabithia. Within their kingdom, Jess finds peace. This story has a powerful ending that will affect readers and leave the story in their heart for years to come.

Genre: Fiction, Adventure, Contemporary Realistic

Grade Level: 5-6

Readers who will like this: Readers who enjoy imagination, readers looking for friendship, teaching children about friendship.

Response/Rating (1-4): 4

One question you would ask before a read aloud: What does it mean to be a good friend?

Reading Strategies Connection: A reading strategy/connection that could be used with this story is called Open-Mind Portraits (Tompkins). Open-Mind Portraits will focus on comprehension for this novel. The strategy will allow students to analyze a character and reflect on important events from the story. The students will draw a portrait of a character. The portraits have two parts: the character’s face and an open face which will symbolize the character’s mind and what they were thinking at certain moments in the story. The students will be visually representing the character’s thoughts and this allows them to examine all aspects of the character. They can recall on the character’s appearance and what they are thinking, their activities, and their motivation. For example, a student would draw the face of Jess, on the second face they might draw a picture of a paintbrush, a picture of a runner, a symbol for loneliness, etc.