Bridge to Terabithia :: essays research papers

This takes place in a small town in the 1970's. It is based on a boy named Jesse Aarons but he is called Jess. He cannot wait until fifth grade starts because he will be the fastets runner, he even practiced all summer. He has two older sisters and two younger sisters. His older sisters never seem to do anything and are always ridiculing him. His younger sisters look up to him, mostly May Belle though. Jess's dad works in Washington ans so he is gone during the day a lot. It is up to Jess to milk their cow Miss Bessie everyday. His dad isn't affectionate to him and seems only to be nice to the girls, the same goes for his mom. They try to treat him too much like a man. One day, a new family moves into the old Perkin's farmhouse. There are usually families moving in and out of it all the time. There ends up being a girl named Leslie Burke who is the only child and Jess's age. She walks over to his house and says hi, but he ignores her. On the first day of school she is in his class. She hangs around him during recess and is the first girl to race and beat all the boys. This hurts Jess because he had practiced all summer. They end up becoming real good friends though and hang around each other everyday. They help May Belle get the school bully Janice Avery back after she stole May Belle's twinkie. They did it by writing Janice a fake love letter from Willard Hughes saying that he liked her and for her to walk home from school with him. So, Janice ended up walking all alone back home from school. Jess and Leslie create a secret place together in between their woods called Terabithia where Jess is the king and Leslie the queen. They built a small fort and try to talk like royalty does. In order to get to Terabithia they swing on a rope over a small creek. When Christmas comes around Leslie got Jess a new paint set since he loves to paint and his family is sort of poor. Leslie's family is rich but doesn't show it because she wears raggedy clothes and doesn't have a tv. Both her parents are authors trying to live the country lifestyle after moving from the scity.