Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

I read Bridge to Terabithia at least four times during my late elementary and early middle school years. I loved the book. Maybe because I had experienced a lot of loss in my life, maybe because I, like Leslie, moved from a place where I had a lot of friends to a place where I had only one, or maybe just because it's a great book. Whatever the reason, I received great comfort from the story and turned to it whenever my own outlook on life was looking bleak. Reading it now, twenty plus years later, I am struck by the things I didn't even notice when I was young. First, how mean the kids are! Is this one of the aspects of childhood that is universal: Kids of all ages since the beginning of time hurting, humiliating and tormenting each other? It concerns me as a teacher, but even more as a mother. Why is it that now we have our schools locked down, monitored for guns and other weapons, etc. What made kids of the last hundred plus years able to overcome this emotional abuse but not the kids of today? I've been thinking about this a lot in the past week. I can't help but wonder if a modern day Janice Avery would be suicidal or, worse, homicidal. Or if Jesse, always shouldering more than his share of the work around the house along with loads of teasing from his sisters, would have run away from home at sixteen and never looked back. Maybe. In my own experience, I only knew one person in my high school of 1,200 kids who ran away from home, and truth be told, he was kicked out by his alcoholic parents. We had no bomb threats, concerns about knives or guns (students and teachers alike carried jack-knives to school), or security guards. That was only fifteen years ago, but a far cry from today's schools. What is rather alarming to me is that nowhere in my memory of reading this book do I recall being surprised by the teasing and hurtful behavior. It suggests to me that I thought it was pretty typical stuff. Not bothersome, concerning, or even worthy of note. Ok. Moving on. The other thing I had almost no recollection of from my childhood readings of this book is the adventures in Terabithia itself. I remembered the grove of pine trees being sacred, but that's it. I was so caught up in the friendship between Jesse and Leslie, I never really thought about their adventures. My husband on the other hand, played Terabithia in the woods near his home. He and his friends would go out and fight giants to protect the kingdom. Yet, while I cry every time I read the book, he has never shed a tear over it. I wonder if this is a difference between males and females or if it's just that he was so much more creative than I was, and I so much more emotional. No matter what the answer, I think Bridge to Terabithia is one of the greatest stories ever written and I thoroughly enjoyed this blast from my past.