Katherine Paterson lived for a time in Takoma Park, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C.[3] The novel was inspired by an incident during that time: on August 14, 1974, her son David's best friend, Lisa Christina Hill, died after being struck by lightning in Bethany Beach, Delaware.[4] She was eight years old.[3][5][6]
The name of the imaginary kingdom is similar to that of the Narnian island Terebinthia, created by C. S. Lewis in 1951 or earlier for Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Paterson observed in 2005:
I thought I had made it up. Then, rereading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis, I realized that I had probably gotten it from the island of Terebinthia in that book. However, Lewis probably got that name from the terebinth tree in the Bible, so both of us pinched from somewhere else, probably unconsciously.[7]
The novel makes a direct reference to The Chronicles of Narnia as a series of books Leslie lends to Jess, in order to help him learn to behave like a king.
The novel also indirectly alludes to the fantasy series The Chronicles of Prydain.
