Crowned in Terabithia

We welcomed the girls and their moms to Terabithia last Wednesday for Great Reads for Girls.

The book we discussed, Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson, deals with friendship, imagination, bullying, family, differences, fear, and death.

There was a lot to discuss.

The girls and their moms had some great comments.

(Warning: spoilers)

Though the end of the book is tragic, this quote puts it into perspective:

He thought about it all day, how before Leslie came, he had been a nothing – a stupid, weird little kid who drew funny pictures and chased around a cow field trying to act big- trying to hide a whole mob of foolish little fears running riot inside his gut. It was Leslie who had taken him from the cow pasture into Terabithia and turned him into a king. He had thought that was it. Wasn’t king the best you could be? Now it occurred to him that perhaps Terabithia was like a castle where you came to be knighted. After you stayed for a while and grew strong you had to move on. For hadn’t Leslie, even in Terabithia, tried to push back the walls of his mind and make him see beyond to the shining world – huge and terrible and beautiful and very fragile? . . .

Now it was time for him to move out. She wasn’t there, so he must go for both of them. It was up to him to pay back to the world in beauty and caring what Leslie had loaned him in vision and strength.

Activity: The girls and their moms used their imaginations by creating one-third of each picture without seeing what the others had drawn.

Craft: They created their own Terabithia crowns.