Treasury

by Katherine Paterson, Donna Diamond (Illustrator)

Newbery Medalist and National Book Award winner Katherine Paterson captures the poignancy of adolescence like no one else. In three of her best-loved novels, Jess, Gilly, and Sara Louise each learn they are not so different or so alone as they may think.

In Bridge to Terabithia, Jess is tired of being "that crazy little kid that draws all the time." He practices the entire summer before school starts, hoping to become the fastest boy in the fifth grade and win the approval of his classmates - only to be beaten by a girl. That same girl teaches him the beauty of his own imagination as they rule over their own imaginary kingdom, and she shows him the depth of his own strength when a tragedy occurs.

The Great Gilly Hopkins has been a foster child all her life. By the time she comes to live with Maime Trotter she is already known throughout the county foster system as a terror. There is no way Gilly's is going to accept the kindness of a woman too stupid to know what she is really like. She will just have to find a way to get to California, where her real mom is now living.

In Jacob Have I Loved, Sara Louise should love her twin sister; everyone else loves beautiful, charming Caroline. For plain Sara hates her. Working her dad's fishing boat, she finds a sense of peace. However, something more is going to have to give inside her before she can love herself, her home, and her sister.

Genres: Young Adult, Childrens, Classics, Fiction, Fantasy

520 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Katherine Womeldorf Paterson is an American writer best known for children's novels, including Bridge to Terabithia. For four different books published 1975–1980, she won two Newbery Medals and two National Book Awards. She is one of four people to win the two major international awards; for "lasting contribution to children's literature" she won the biennial Hans Christian Andersen Award for Writing in 1998 and for her career contribution to "children's and young adult literature in the broadest sense" she won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award from the Swedish Arts Council in 2006, the biggest monetary prize in children's literature. Also for her body of work she was awarded the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature in 2007 and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal from the American Library Association in 2013. She was the second US National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, serving 2010 and 2011.

Reviews

[Juliet · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was first exposed to these three novels when my grade school teacher read them aloud to us in the classroom while we colored at our desks. When she got to the end of A Bridge to Terabithia, we were all sobbing and needing Kleenexes, including the teacher. After that, I read every Katherine Paterson book I could find, and they were all so delicious.

Coming back to them now, as an adult, they are still just as good. I had a little trouble getting into Jacob Have I Loved but that's because a real-life hurricane was approaching the home of some friends of mine, and I had to stop reading about a fictional one. But I love all these characters -- especially Jess and Gilly Hopkins and William Earnest (Pow) -- just as much now as I did back when I was nine. Thoroughly satisfying read for anyone of any age.

[Nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The best of the three is 'Bridge to Terabithia' though each had some good parts.

[Iman A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only read bridge to terabithia in it (since there are three books here) but it was really good...it was also really sad