Mod 7: Hatchet by Gary Paulsen

Summary:

In Hatchet Brian Robeson is a 13-yr old boy with a lot on his mind.  His parents are getting divorced, and he knows a secret about an affair his mother was having.  He is flying to visit his father in Canada in a bush plane.  The pilot allows him to fly a little, but it doesn’t take his mind of his problems, and even when the pilot starts to complain of strange pain in his arm Brian can’t stop thinking about the divorce.  That is until the pilot suddenly dies of a heart attack.

Brian crash lands the plane in a lake in the middle of the Canadian wilderness, and things go from bad to worse.  The only tool he has is a hatchet given to him by his mother before he left.  He has trouble with animals, finding shelter, eats some poison berries, and fails to signal a plane passing overhead.  At his lowest point Brian attempts to kill himself with the hatchet, but fails. 

After he wakes up Brian takes on a new outlook and becomes determined to survive.  It is still hard for Brian but he always remembers that crying about things solves nothing and he is able to catch birds, fish and even finds the plane wreckage and is able to get the survival kit out of it.  He messes with a transmitter in the pack, but is unsure if it ever works, but he is eventually rescued, but his outlook on life is forever changed.

Paulsen, G. (1987). Hatchet. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

My Impressions:

This book is great.  I feel it stands out as realistic fiction because it is an appealing story for boys unlike most realistic fiction that is chosen for youth to read in school settings.  It is wonderfully written and descriptive.  Paulsen is also able to really get into the mindset of a 13-year old boy and I find Brian’s reactions and actions in the book incredibly believable.

Reviews:

“Gary Pulsen’s Hatchet has been loved, reread and, sometimes, done to death by teachers and kids since it came out. There’s a good reason for all this attention: Hatchet is an outstanding survival story, simply and beautifully written, but with real meat to it.  Since I first read it, I’ve eagerly grabbed every Paulsen book I could find an I’ve never been disappointed. Now Paulsen has given us a sequel to Hatchet and we’re off again to the beauty and dangers of the woods.”

Hurst, C. O. (1991). Survival story [review of Hatchet by G. Paulsen]. Teaching Pre K-8, 22(1), 128.

Usage in a Library Setting:

This book could be used as part of a wild survival program were perhaps either speakers who survived in the wild themselves are brought in to speak about their experiences along with some book talks about this and other survival books, or there can be lessons on how to create things in the wild using information from non-fiction survival books in the library.