Themes

Friendship
Jess and Leslie’s friendship is special. At first Jess has no interest in being her friend, but they end up best friends. Their friendship begins with Jess finally smiling at Leslie during music class. In the end Jess realizes that his friendship with Leslie helped him grow and now “It was up to him to pay back to the world in beauty and caring what Leslie had loaned him in vision and strength” (p. 161)

Leslie also relies on Jess to be her friend. She is new to the school and doesn’t fit in. She tells him later after helping Janice upon his insistence that because of him she now “has one and one-half friends at Lark Creek School” (p.97). After her death, her father also tells Jess how much he meant to Leslie, “She loved you, you know.’ He could tell from Bill’s voice that he was crying. ‘She told me once that if it weren’t for you…’ His voice broke completely. …Thank you for being such a wonder friend to her” (p. 144).

Transformation
Jess is changed by Leslie’s friendship. When he first decides he will be friendly to her he acknowledges that at that moment” He felt there in the teachers’ room that it was the beginning of a new season in his life, and he chose deliberately to make it so” (p. 39-40). He also later realizes that:

“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 hid a whole mob of foolish little fears running riot inside his gut….Leslie, even in Terabithia, tried to push back the walls of his mind and make him see beyond to the shining word…” (p. 160)

Courage
Jess is surrounded by girls, plays with the boys at recess and Leslie is different from the rest of his classmates so he is not very friendly to her at first.  His first smile to her is when they are in Miss Edmund’s music class singing “Free To Be…You and Me”  which “Caught in the pure delight of it he, Jess turned and his eyes met Leslie’s. He smiled at her. What the heck? There wasn’t any reason he couldn’t. What was he scared of anyhow? ” (p. 39). He could be friends with the new girl no matter what anyone though of him or her. There are many times that Jess is afraid to do things, but he is able to push past them sometimes. When they first come up with the idea of having a secret place, Jess is afraid of going into the forest and many times he is afraid of crossing into Terabithia when the creek has more water in it. In the end, he realizes “As for the terrors ahead-for he did not fool himself that they were all behind him-well, you just have to stand up to your fear not let it squeeze you white” (p.161).

Being Oneself
Jess continues his drawing even though the only person that seems to encourage it is Miss Edmunds. “‘Did you keep drawing this summer?’ ‘Yes’m'” (p. 38). Jess also decides he wants to be friends with Leslie and is inspired by the song “Free To Be…You and Me”.

Leslie dresses as she pleases and eats what she wants to eat. When she gets to school dressed as she normally does, while everyone has on their Sunday best, “The reaction didn’t seem to bother her. She stood there in front, her eyes saying, ‘OK, friends, here I am”” (p. 24) When she writes about her favorite hobby, she writes about scuba diving. Jess, on the other hand, is afraid of being his true self, “had  written about football, which he really hated, but he had enough brains to know that if he said drawing, everyone would laugh at him” (p.42).

Miss Edmunds is also feels she can be herself and stands out from the rest of the teachers at the school. The students enjoy her class but  pretend not to: “The kids would make fun of Miss Edmunds’ lack of lipstick or the cut of her jeans. She was, of course, the only female teacher anyone had ever seen in Lark Creek Elementary wearing pants” (p. 16). She also doesn’t wear lipstick. Miss Edmunds seems to love her job and also sees what a sensitive and artistic boy Jess is and tells him once “Your’e the proverbial diamond in the rough” (p.17). She also takes Jess to the Smithsonian, which turns out to be his first trip to an art gallery.

Family
In the book we see the different family dynamics. The Aarons are poor and they don’t always get along, but we see at the end that they care for each other. While May Belle looks up to Jess, his older sisters are often putting him down or teasing him. While Jess is sometimes mean to May Bell, he chips in extra money to get her the Barbie she wanted for Christmas and spends a lot of time playing with her and her new doll. The parents also have rigid expectations for Jess. His father doesn’t care for Jess doing things that make him seem less “manly”. For example, he tells his father he wants to grow up to be an artist and his father says, “What are they teaching in that damn school?’ (p. 14) and goes on to say a bit more. Jess also want his affection and attention, but it seems that they think he is too big for that. In the end however, when he is upset about Leslie’s death, his father goes after him, “pulled Jess over on his lap as if he were Joyce Anne” (p. 147) and strokes his hair and comforts him the best he can. Even Momma knows that he is in a fragile state and must be forceful in stepping in to protect Jess: “Will you shut your mouth, Brenda Aarons?’ His mother sprang forward, the pancake turner held threateningly high” (p. 138).

We also see the Burke family. Leslie is an only child and she calls her parents by their first names, Bill and Judy. The activities in the house are different than in the Aarons where there are 5 children and lots of chores to be done. In Leslie’s house “they listened to Bill’s records or sang…At other times they would talk. Jess listened wonderingly as Bill explained things that were going on in the world. If Momma could hear him, she’d swear he was another Walter Cronkite instead of ‘some hippie.’ All the Burkes were smart. Not smart, maybe, about fixing thins or growing things, but smart in a way Jess had never known real live people to be. Like one day while they were working, Judy came down and read out loud to them, mostly poetry and some of it in Italian…” (p. 88). Different families, but trying to do what they can for their children.

Death
Leslie’s death comes as a surprise to Jess and he deals with it in a messy but very real way. He runs off and gets mad and doesn’t believe it at first “It’s a lie. Leslie ain’t dead” (p. 132) he says before he runs off. He keeps running because he feels like he can run away from it and keep it from being true. His father picks him up, but must restrain him as he is kicking and struggling. His father takes him back home in the truck where he “opened the door and got out, with a numbness flooding through him” (p.134). He sleeps and wakes up and thinks it has all been a bad dream. He goes with his parents to see the Burkes and is mad that they are crying. He isn’t crying so why are they? He runs off and then hits May Bell when he sees her, takes his gift from Leslie and throws in the creek, and gets mad at Leslie. His father finds him and he is able to cry and tells his father “I hate her. I wish I’d never seen her in my whole life” (p. 147). The pain is so overwhelming for him. When he goes back to school he still sort of expects to see her. He refuses to stand during the allegiance but instead of getting upset with him,  Mrs. Myers tells him about her husband’s death and how “people kept telling me not to cry, kept trying to make me forget…But I didn’t want to forget” (p. 159). They agree that it must be hard so they will help each other out.