Author: Katherine Paterson
Book: Bridge to Terabithia
Summary of the book:
This was actually one of my favorite books. It goes to show you what kind of interesting books that you can find in the young adult's section even if your not a young adult anymore. This is also a movie, but I'm content on not watching the movie just because I feel like it would ruin the book. I feel that way towards many movies that were made after a book though as they just don't leave as much to the imagination like this book can do.
The book is about a boy named Jess who is your everyday middle class to lower class boy. He lives on a farm and has many chores to do. He has several sisters and the family as a whole doesn't have much money to spend. Jess tends to daze of in class and starts to doodle. I guess I can say the only difference between him and I were that his doodles were actually quite good.
One day a girl moved in next to him named Leslie. At firs Jess and Leslie didn't quite hit it off, but eventually Jess became friends with her and even allowed her to run a race with the boys that Jess had been training for all summer long.
One day they figured that they needed their own place to go to escape the real world. They found a place in the woods and named it the land of Terabithia. The only way you could enter this world was to swing on a rope over the river. It wasn't magical if you entered in any other way.
Here they had many adventures and they even started taking their adventures outside into the real world by playing tricks on the mean girls at school. One rainy day Jess's teacher, who he had a big crush on, took him out to an art museum. He was having the time of his life. When he got back home he had found out some terrible news that would change his life. To find out what this terrible new is your going to have to read the book yourself.
Critique:
When talking about Modern Fantasy books this one really fits the style. It's very imaginative and it allows it's readers to escape reality for the time being. It also contains these things, which are very important to Modern Fantasy books.
It provides vivid descriptions of characters, setting, and action by giving us sensual details: the colors, sounds, textures, tastes, and smells of the fantasy worlds.
It engages the hearts of the reader by grounding the story in reality and the human condition: humor, joy grief, pride, shame, hope, and despair. (It rather shows this well with the funny stories throughout the book, the pride of Jess wanting to be the fastest boy, and the sad ending)
It maintains consistency by abiding by the rules established in the fantasy world. Veering from the rules causes the reader to stop and speculate about the viability of the story, preventing suspension of disbelief.
Other:
I also made a little animation/sales pitch of why you should read this book. It can be viewed here.
