is wonderful and genuine, "a beautiful wild creature who had been caught for a moment in (a) dirty old cage...perhaps by mistake".

In the evening, Jess's sisters return home, and his father comes home from work.  Jess, feeling lonely, put-upon, and left out, goes out running.  As he passes the old Perkins place, he meets Leslie Burke, who has just moved in.  Leslie is friendly, but Jess does not encourage her overtures.  He cuts off her efforts to make conversation brusquely, and when he comes out later to do the milking, she is gone (Chapter 2).

Jess experiences jealousy in two different ways. When Leslie is busy helping her father remodel the farmhouse, he is jealous of the time she spends with her dad. He is lost and lonesome. Later on, he experiences something similar with May Bell. When his little sister follows him to the creek, he resents her intrusion into his private world with Leslie. The situation shows he is coming into adolescence and feeling what a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship is like. In Chapter 8, Jess reveals that he merely accepts what is taught in church and gives no further thought to it. He does not question what the church teaches. When Leslie discusses her impression of the church service, he is shocked when she questions how Jesus's death is both beautiful and tragic. She has never read the Bible, and his church teaches that that is a sin for which she will die and go to Hell. The thought bothers him because he knows what a good person Leslie is. How could someone like her go to Hell just for not reading a book? His adolescence is again coming to the fore, as he questions what is accepted in society.

Jess gets up early every morning to run. He wants to be the fastest boy in the 5th grade. New neighbors move into the old Perkins farmhouse next door. Jess meets Leslie and thinks her clothes make her odd-looking. Leslie beats all the boys at running at recess, making Jess disappointed. Leslie mistakenly sits at the back of the bus in Janice Avery's seat, and Jess rescues her. Jess and Leslie become good friends. They establish the kingdom of Terabithia in the woods beyond the creek. Leslie gives Jess paints and paper to practice his wonderful drawing ability. Jess gives Leslie a puppy. Leslie goes to Easter services with the Aarons family. Jess goes to Washington museums with his music teacher. Leslie drowns trying to cross the flooded creek to Terabithia. Jess and the Aarons go to pay their respects to Leslie's family. Leslie's family moves out of the Perkins farm and returns to Washington. Jess builds a bridge to Terabithia, and introduces his younger sister, May Belle, to it.

There are several important events in Bridge to Terabithia. Jess Aarons and Leslie Burke meet and become friends. They build a fantasyland across the creek in the woods that they call Terabithia, and they play there all the time. In Terabithia, they can forget the rest of the world with the school bullies and Jess’s irritating family. Jess and Leslie's friendship stretches beyond the limits of Terabithia to the school where they are teased for their friendship, but this no longer bothers them because they have each other’s friendship. At home they celebrate holidays together. Jess gives Leslie a puppy for Christmas that she names Prince Terrien, and she gives him an expensive art set to develop his artistic talent. At Easter, Leslie goes to church for the first time with Jess, and she is impressed by the beauty of the story of Christ. Miss Edmunds, the music teacher at school, whom Jess has a crush on, invites him to spend a day with her touring the art galleries in Washington, but when he gets home he is told that Leslie drowned in the creek that morning trying to swing into Terabithia on the rope that they used for that purpose. Jess is devastated and goes through the stages of grief—denial, anger, fear, and sorrow—all incredibly painful to suffer and read about. In the beginning, he does not see how he is to go on, but he brings his little sister May Belle there and makes her its new queen, assuring that a part of Leslie will live on as well.

Take your pick.  The book is filled with wonderful moments.  Your job is going to be to explain why you picked the event that you picked.  

I like the revenge scheme against Janice Avery.  Janice is a bully, and I don't like bullies.  Reading about Jess and Leslie getting sweet revenge by embarrassing Janice with a fake love letter is a great sequence in the book.  Their plot is creative.  It's effective, and they get away with it.  

I also really like the Christmas gift exchange between Jess and Leslie.  Each gave the other person a gift that the other person appreciated deeply.  They were heartfelt gifts of love.  Not meaningless gifts that will soon be forgotten.  

Lastly, I really like the school running competitions.  I like that part for personal reasons.  I'm a runner, and I like running.  I also really like that part because Leslie enters the competition and beats all of the boys.  I like the way that she enters and leaves the competition. She doesn't come in super cocky about it, and she never stuffs her wins in anybody's face.  She simply lets her running speak for itself.