Bridge to Terabithia, a novel by Katherine Paterson

‘We need a place,’ she said, ‘just for us. It would be so secret that we would never tell anyone in the whole world about it.’

It was the new girl, Leslie, who invented Terabithia – a secret country in the woods beyond the dry creek bed. Here Jess is a king – strong, unafraid, unbeatable – so that when something dreadful happens – more dreadful than Jess could ever have imagined – he is able to face grief and disaster, and even save his kingdom for the future.

It’s a little impossible here for boy (Jesse Aarons) can imagine something when someone or Leslie read and tell him a story. As I know, boys don’t imagine things like that. Monsters, kingdom. Jesse can feel what the story tells like which his teacher read about Leslie’s scuba diving composition. He felt drawn and can’t breathe. I think it’s because Jesse like drawing so his imaginations fly everywhere.

Many classics story are mentioned. Narnia, Moby Dick, Hamlet. But, that’s it. No fights, no magical creatures, no bad guys. No curiosity to continue the book. The mystified things only happen in Jesse’s and Leslie’s imagination. It’s just ordinary book for kids with some morals of the story.

Coraline, a novel by Neil Gaiman

The door once led to a room, but when the old house was converted into the flats the doorway was bricked up. That is, until the day curious little girl named Coraline sneaks the key from the distracted mother. Opens the door… and enters an alternate universe, where dogs eat nothing but chocolate, cats can talk, and she is greeted enthusiastically by her Other Parents.

Her Other Mother looks quite a bit like her own mother… except for her long spindly fingers and shiny black buttons eyes. – but it’s her disposition that is most remarkable. When her real mother always too busy for Coraline, her Other Mother is attentive and affectionate. She cooks delicious meals, showers the little girl with praise, and asks Coraline to stay with her forever.
But Coraline misses her real parents – tiresome as they sometimes are – and insists on returning to the real world. There, she finds her parents trapped in the hallway mirror, victims of the Other Mother’s evil spell. Now she must take a dangerous journey back into the other world… or risks never seeing her parents again!

Neil Gaiman played with our mind. He made us imagining what another parents and another flat looked like. This is a simple story, good versus evil but in fantasy of children’s form. Kids can open up their imaginations and make their own world of Coraline story. Hollywood is in the process of making this into movie, with Dakota Fanning as Coraline.

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