Katherine Paterson Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Richard Peck

Critical Essay by Richard Peck

[Jesse and Leslie] create a wilderness hideaway kingdom, the "Terabithia" of the title … It lacks the elaboration of earlier childhood fantasy, perhaps to indicate they're already growing past the possibility of easy escape. The diction they adopt in their private principality may make some young readers uncomfortable….

The author is at the top of her form in creating the uninspiring round of home and school. Jess contemplates, like most of his readers, that he may have been adopted—and abducted from a far more cultivated home….

Like all the best books for the young, Bridge to Terabithia ends at a beginning. The young survivor offers love to a new and worthy recipient. And the reader of any age draws strength from the conclusion. (p. E3)

Richard Peck, "The Crime of Being Different," in Book World—The Washington Post (© 1977, The Washington Post), November 13, 1977.