Bridge to Terabithia

Just got done watching this Disney movie.

About halfway thru it, I started remembering the story line and realized it is not an original work.

Terabithia first came onto my radar back when I was about the age of the main characters.

Back then, we read books more than we watched movies. And, this was a fairly popular book in the late 1970s.

I, on the other hand, preferred C.S. Lewis and his Chronicles of Narnia series. And, that's how I first became aware of the story in question.

You see, there was a bit of controversy back in the Stone Age, because a lot of Narnia fans were convinced the author of this book had "stolen" the name Terabithia from Lewis.

If you were a big Narnia Nerd like I was/am, you may remember the Isle of Terebinthia in Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

But, it turned out that Lewis himself (a reformed atheist) lifted the name of the island from the Biblican terebintha tree, a source of turpentine in the Mediterranean region that has been mentioned in written works since at least the time of Virgil's Aenid.

Anyway, I guess the point of all my ramblings here is that this is not an original story. It doesn't have an original name in its title. But, it is still quite entertaining.

Warning, though, it takes a sad twist toward the end that may be upsetting to younger viewers. (One of the main characters dies.)