For my rereading book, I am reading Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson. In the text, Jess is the hero. He's a very lost boy who almost seems pushed into adolescence at a very young age because of his inattentive judgmental family, but he still has a child's view, almost, about the world and bigger scale situations. He is on a loss of innocence journey, gradually losing his inner child as the story goes along.
Leslie is his mentor, and she is his age (9 or 10) but she has an adult soul. She is so incredibly smart and she introduces Jess to the wonder of good literature like Moby Dick and Hamlet and expands Jess's imagination. She ultimately becomes Jess's world because of her broad and ever-expanding imagination. She helps Jess have a bigger imagination as the story goes on.
The shadow in Bridge to Terabithia is reality, because while Jess explores and rules the imaginary kingdom of Terabithia with Leslie, he has no worries about his life or whatever predicament he may be in at home or school. But when Jess comes out of Terabithia, he has to face his problems. For example, Jess's dad thinks that he's a "sissy" because he loves to draw and he plays with girls. His older sisters and peers at school ridicule him relentlessly as well.
There is no clear shapeshifter in Bridge to Terabithia, but it almost feels like his mother is a shapeshifter. She never teases him and she is the kindest to him in his family besides May Belle, but she doesn't accept that Jess always plays with Leslie. Throughout the book she calls Leslie and her parents "dirty hippies" and she won't let Leslie come to church with them unless she looks feminine and ladylike.
I am almost finished with the book, but even though I know the ending I am very intrigued to to see Jess's true loss of innocence when the tragedy happens. I wonder what role the mother will take in the end as well.
