Yes, Bridge to Terabithia Is Banned!

Bridge to Terabithia tells the story of Jess Aarons, a boy growing up in a rural community, and Leslie Burke, the imaginative new girl who becomes his best friend. Together they create Terabithia, a magical kingdom in the woods accessible only by swinging across a creek on a rope. Paterson based the story on a real tragedy: the death of her son’s childhood friend, Lisa Hill, who was struck by lightning. The novel won the Newbery Medal in 1978 and has been a staple of elementary school reading lists for nearly 50 years.

The book ranked eighth on the ALA’s list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books from 1990 to 2000. In 1986, Lincoln Public Schools in Nebraska challenged it as sixth-grade recommended reading because it contained “profanity” including the phrases “Lord” and “damn.” Oskaloosa, Kansas, parents objected to its “Satanic” themes in 1991 (the imaginary kingdom’s make-believe magic was the culprit). Parents in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and New Milford, Connecticut, have also filed challenges. Across the board, the objections target the book’s mild language, the children’s fantasy play (deemed “witchcraft”), and the fact that a main character dies, which some parents considered too dark for children.

Why You Should Read This

Paterson wrote this book through real grief, and you can feel it in every page. The first two-thirds are about friendship at its most pure: two kids who build a world together out of nothing but imagination and trust. The last third is about what happens when that world breaks. It doesn’t flinch. It doesn’t offer a tidy resolution. It just shows a kid trying to understand death for the first time, which is one of the hardest things any child has to do.

The challenges against this book reveal a strange impulse: the desire to protect children from any encounter with sadness or complexity. The parents who called Terabithia “Satanic” apparently thought that children playing pretend in the woods constituted devil worship. The parents who objected to the death wanted a version of childhood where nothing bad happens, which isn’t childhood at all.

Paterson has said she finds it “ironic” that her book keeps getting banned. She wrote it so children would have a safe way to confront loss. Taking it away doesn’t protect kids from death. It just leaves them less prepared for it.