what is the summary of bridge to terbithia chapter 13 and 12?

Question

hi, I'm karen

I will like to know if you have read bridge to terbithia, because right now, i'm reading it. I'm on chapter 12. i really dont want to read 12 and 13. I saw a question about bridge to terbithia, and your answer was the best one. so, i was wondering, if could tell me what happen in chapter 12 and 13. ok bye....

And did you know that the movie is coming on febuary 16, 2007. I cant wait until i watch it!

can you please tell me the summary of chapter 12 and 13?

Answer 1

Chapter 12: Stranded
Summary
Jess and his parents walk over to the Burkes'. When they get there, they find the golden room filled with people. All the people crying unnerve Jess. Somewhere between his house and the Burkes', he seems to have gained some sort of an understanding of what happened, but he is only able to examine his thoughts with a clinical detachment, thinking of the practical ways Leslie's death will affect him. The kids at school will be respectful of him. His parents will make his sisters be nice to him. He has reached the second stage in his grieving, but he has barely begun yet.

All this breaks when Bill, Leslie's father, comes over to him. He hugs Jess and thanks him repeatedly for being such a wonderful friend to Leslie. Jess retreats from this initially by imagining how he and Leslie would react if they were watching such a melodramatic scene on TV. But his link with that detachment snaps when Bill tells him that they have decided to have Leslie cremated. One of Jess's few acknowledgments of Leslie's death had been contained in a passing thought that he would like to see her one more time, even laid out. Now that he knows he will not see her again, he cannot maintain his sense of apathy any longer, and he runs out of the house.
Jess's emotions have turned on again, with a vengeance. When he tears back to his house, May Belle wants to know if he had seen Leslie laid out. May Belle wants to know what a dead person looks like, but Jess just hits her, hard. He gathers up the paint set that Leslie gave him for Christmas, runs back to the creek, and throws it in. Jess's father approaches and tells him, "that was a damn fool thing to do." Jess is sobbing and screaming still, so his father gathers him into his lap, stroking his hair and comforting him.
Eventually Jess calms down enough to ask his father whether he thinks that God damns non-Christians to hell. His father is surprised by the question, and replies that Jess has no need to worry about Leslie, that God would not send a little girl to hell. Jess is soothed.
When they go back to the house, Jess is closer to feeling like himself than he has been all day. He is still in the throes of grief, is incredibly tired and cannot seem to focus on the outside world. He is thinking more normally, and he is aware of the situation now. Later on, Bill comes by and asks Jess to take care of Prince Terrien while he and his wife go on a trip to Pennsylvania. Jess agrees, and sleeps with Prince Terrien that night, and he is comforted by the warm body of the dog Leslie had loved.
Analysis
Throughout the book, Jess's family has not been shown in the most positive light, but in this chapter it becomes clear that despite their frequent distraction, frustration, and irritability, they are good people at heart who care about Jess deeply. Leslie's death brings this out in them, and for once they are a source of comfort to him. The scenes with Jess's father are particularly telling. For once, his father seems to have found the right balance between treating Jess as a child and treating him as an adult. He knows that what Jess needs at the moment is to be cradled like a child, and yet he speaks to him as an adult when he talks with him about Leslie's death and the concept of hell. Once it has been established that Jess really needs him—not in the sense that he needs an expensive Christmas present, but that he needs his comfort and advice and love—Mr. Aarons is able to rise to the occasion. The father-son bond is stronger in this chapter than it has been at any other point in the book.

Jess's action in throwing away the art supplies Leslie had given him is a complicated one, born of many impulses. Foremost is probably anger, anger with Leslie for leaving him behind to struggle through the rest of his life. This is evident in his attack on May Belle and the furious energy which drives him. Perhaps he feels that by getting rid of the last tangible element of his friendship with Leslie, he will be able to cut her out of his heart as well. Then, too, there is the symbolism of his throwing the paints and paper into the creek where Leslie died. It is almost seems as if he is giving them back to her, canceling his debt of friendship to her, proclaiming that it is as dead as Leslie herself. Last, it seems to be a declaration that all the talent and uniqueness in him were dependent on her. Without her, he is just a stupid little fifth-grader again, a crazy little kid who likes to draw instead of the king of Terabithia and a soon-to-be-world-famous artist. Jess feels that Leslie has drawn him up to higher levels personally, and now that he is gone, he seems to feel that he cannot maintain a claim on those new parts of himself. The paint set is a symbol of this, and no doubt that it is part of why he throws it away.

Chapter 13: Building the Bridge
Summary
The next morning Jess heads down to the creek. He means to see if he can find any of his paints, but once he is there he decides to go to Terabithia instead. He crosses on an old branch and then hesitates, unsure of what to do. For a minute he is convinced that the magic has indeed departed forever, that Leslie's death and the breaking of the rope cemented his fate as an ordinary boy rather than a king for the rest of his life. He has always felt somewhat at a loss without Leslie to guide him through the wonders of the kingdom. She is always been the one who spoke so royally, who had most of the ideas, who really had a sense of how a magic kingdom should be. Jess wants to recapture that, but he's not sure how. Eventually he decides to make a funeral wreath.

Jess is pleased with the effect when he has done. He picks it up and slowly, at the head of a great procession, carries it to the grove of the spirits. Here he manages to find words, lifted from his few experiences at church, "Father, into thy hands I commend her spirit." Those words have the ring of the sacred grove in them, and Jess begins to feel that perhaps he can be a king even now that his queen is gone.
Just then he hears a shriek. May Belle has tried to cross to the other side of the creek on the branch, but she has gotten stuck halfway and is too terrified to move. Jess is still in control, and the sense of strength that descended upon him in the sacred grove has not left him. He rescues her, coaxing her across to the other side. May Belle confesses that she had wanted to help him so he would not be lonely, but that she got too scared. Jess assures her that everyone gets scared, and it is nothing to be ashamed of. They walk back to the house together.
The next day in school, Leslie's desk has already been taken out of the classroom. Everything floods back to Jess, this time in a different light. All her schoolmates had hated Leslie, he thinks, and they would not care that she was dead. They were all too eager to get rid of her desk and the memory of her. Jess is sullen and withdrawn until Mrs. Myers calls him outside the room to speak with him. She expresses her sympathy, saying how extraordinary Leslie was and how much she will miss her. Mrs. Myers said that since she will miss her, she cannot imagine how much harder it must be for Jess. She tells him that when her husband died, people were always telling her she would forget, but that she did not want to forget. She knows it is the same for Jess now, and she wants him to know that if she can ever help him through this in any way, he should let her know.
Mrs. Myers's words actually have meaning for Jess, and help him to see Mrs. Myers in a whole new light. He appreciates knowing that he will never forget Leslie. He thinks about how Leslie has changed him, and he realizes that the only way to preserve both those changes and her memory is to preserve Terabithia. He knows that Terabithia is not the ultimate destination in his life. Terabithia is a place of childhood, and that he must graduate from there to the real world. He is resolved not to let Terabithia die when he leaves it for this new world pressing on him.
The Burkes move out of the old Perkins place several days later, saying that without Leslie, there is no reason to stay there anymore. They give Jess all Leslie's books and her own watercolor set, and tell him that if he wants anything they have left behind, all he has to do is ask. Jess requests some of the lumber on their back porch.

The next day Jess goes down to the creek and builds a bridge across it with the lumber he got from the Burkes. He brings May Belle down and swears her to secrecy, although he says she might want to let Joyce Ann in on the secret in time. They cross the bridge to Terabithia and he tells May Belle the Terabithians are all in a flutter, saying, "there's a rumor going around that the beautiful girl arriving today might be the queen they've been waiting for."
Analysis
The final chapter ties up a lot of the loose ends in the book without ever being trite or simplistic. Jess's realization is that the magic is in him, not just in Leslie, and that he has worth on his own as well as with her. It reinforces that a part of their friendship will live on, and that although Leslie herself is gone, traces of her still remain so long as he remembers her. This helps him to achieve a new peace within himself and to carry on as a stronger person.
Jess's rescue of May Belle serves a double function. In one way it seems to be a recreation of Leslie's death, only with a different ending. May Belle could easily have slipped and drowned, and it would all have taken place again, but here Jess saves her life. Perhaps this helps him to feel he's atoned for the mistake which still haunts him, when he neglected to invite Leslie along with him and Miss Edmunds. His rescue of May Belle is clearly symbolic of the fact that Leslie's death does not leave the world hopeless and that it does not signify the end of everything. Her rescue is a renewal. This is developed when Jess brings her across the bridge to Terabithia. Leslie was an amazingly special person, but she wasn't the only special person in the world, and if Jess is to carry on with his life in a way that she would have liked, he must take advantage of the other precious relationships in his life. In doing so, he is preserving her memory as well. The building of the bridge shows that the magic was not in the rope, as Leslie had said, and it was not all in Leslie, either. Instead, it is in the heart of any person dedicated to seeking it."

By the way, from what I've seen on TV of the movie, it has very little to do with the book. There are NO monsters, weird creatures, etc. in the book, which, as you can see from the summaries above, is a very realistic novel.

Answer 2

Bridge To Terabithia Chapter 13 Summary

Answer 3

Life for teens today is no longer a playground. It's a jungle out there, with tough choices, peer pressure, personal insecurities, and anxiety about what others think. Then consider feelings of depression, inferiority, and jealousy of others' successes, plus self-destructive behaviors such as pornography, vandalism, and gangs. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens workshop from FranklinCovey, based on the best-selling book of the same name by Sean Covey and the No. 1 best-selling business book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey, gives young people a set of proven tools to deal successfully with real life. The training is a means for educators, administrators, and superintendents to help improve student performance; reduce conflicts, disciplinary problems, and truancy; and enhance cooperation and teamwork among parents, teens, and teachers.

Answer 4

Chapters 12 and 13 are very important parts of the story. Sure, they're sad, but reading a summary will be sad as well.


But... since this is for helping, http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/terabithia/section12.rhtml and http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/terabithia/section13.rhtml

Again, though, I suggest reading the book. It's really a good story.

Answer 5

The book's really not very long. I'm sure it wouldn't take you very long to read the chapters yourself.
If you're worried that they're going to be sad, well yes, the book is sad, but that's what makes it so powerful, and you need to read it for yourself.