Bridge to Terabithia

1977, 1987 HarperTrophy edition
Katherine Paterson
Illustrated by Donna Diamond
Bridge to Terabithia
Bought new for $4.95
Worn paperback
B-

This is similar to A Summer to Die not only because one of the young characters dies, but because it's pretty good but not my favorite work by that author.  In Paterson's case, I much prefer Jacob Have I Loved (coming up in 1980).  I will give Paterson credit for developing the character of Leslie, and her friendship with Jess, much more than Lowry did with Molly, or her relationship with her sister. 

Unfortunately, I didn't find Jess or Leslie all that interesting.  Their situations are, particularly their Narnia-inspired imaginary kingdom in the woods, but I didn't feel like I'd want to be friends with either of them.  They are good if flawed people, and I do like how they end up befriending the bully that they'd earlier got revenge on.  It's just, they're both a too serious for me.  When Jess says that he and Leslie would've mocked the sentimentality surrounding her death, I don't buy it, because they're just not that cynical, she especially.  (Yes, she mocks their teacher, but this is told rather than shown.  When I think of Leslie, I think of her belief in fantasy.)

As with Summer, this book shows the legacy of the '60s even into the late '70s.  Leslie is apparently the only girl in their small Southern town who doesn't wear dresses to school.  The music teacher is a "hippie."  And Leslie's writer parents would've hit it off with Meg's writer father.

One aspect that's suggested rather than spelled out is that Jess, as an artistic boy with four sisters, is the victim of stereotypes about masculinity.  Not only the boys at school but his own father think of him as a sissy, or worse.  Of Jess's artwork, his dad says, "What are they teaching at that damn school?  Bunch of old ladies turning my only son into some kind of a--?"  Jess knows that he's taking a risk befriending Leslie, with her short hair and blue jeans.  But he finds a kinship with her that he doesn't have with any of his sisters.

I would've liked Diamond to show some of Jess's art.  Her own is generally solid, although the picture of Jess's dad holding the grieving boy like a baby is all wrong.  It looks more like Jess holding one of his kid sisters, except that the standing figure is in shadow, like Frankenstein's monster holding the dead child in the 1930s movie.

Like Julie of the Wolves five years before, this won the Newbery.  I don't own any better children's books for '77, so I have less of an issue with this winner.

The movie adaptation of this book five years ago was well done, but it was promoted badly, as if it were a fantasy film.