Bridge to Terabithia — Chapter 12

About This Passage

This is the novel's final distinction between the literal and the magical, between what something is and what something means. To 'someone with no magic in him,' the bridge is just boards nailed across a gully. To Jess and Maybelle, it is the entrance to a kingdom that Leslie Burke created — a kingdom built not from lumber but from imagination, courage, and love. Paterson makes the word 'magic' do double duty here: it means both the imaginative capacity that creates Terabithia and the emotional capacity that survives loss. The bridge is Jess's first creative act since Leslie's death, and it is simultaneously practical (safe, sturdy, made of real wood) and magical (the entrance to a world that exists only because two children believed in it).

Narration Prompt

Tell what happens in this chapter in order, from Jess going to the creek through bringing Maybelle across the bridge. Explain why each thing Jess does matters — not just what he does, but what it means.

Discussion Questions

1. Jess builds a bridge out of real lumber — not a rope swing. The rope was the entrance to Terabithia, but it was also the thing that killed Leslie. By replacing the rope with a bridge, what is Jess saying about the difference between courage and recklessness? What has he learned about danger and imagination from Leslie's death? What in the story makes you think so?
2. Jess makes a funeral wreath from pine boughs and spring beauties, then sits in the castle stronghold and says, 'Leslie, I'm just a dumb dodo and you know it. What am I supposed to do?' He is talking to someone who cannot answer. Why does he talk to Leslie here, in Terabithia, rather than at the golden room or at her funeral? What is different about grieving in a place you created together versus grieving in a place that belongs to other people?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide