Hatchet

Title: Hatchet
Author: Gary Paulsen
Publication date: 1987
Number of pages: 195
Genre: Children’s /Young Adult Fiction (ages 9-13)
Geographical Setting: Canadian wilderness
Time Period: 1980s/present
Series: yes, first in the “Brian” books

Plot Summary: Brian Robeson is a fairly ordinary thirteen year old boy from the city. His parents have recently divorced and he is on his way to visit his father in the Canadian wilderness, taking with him a secret about his mother’s reasons for the split. For this trip he must travel in a single engine plane with only the pilot as his company. The plane goes down after the pilot suffers a massive heart attack and lands well off the flight’s original course in the isolated Canadian wilderness. With only his mother’s gift of a hatchet and a desire to live, he must survive alone on the resources he discovers and tools he devises.

Subject Headings: survival, divorce, wilderness, plane crash, Canadian wilderness, hatchet, nature, adventure, boyhood

Appeal: Newberry Honor Book, exciting first novel in a series, literature for boys, one main character, close third person point of view, triumph of individual, realistic fiction

Similar Authors and Works (Fiction): Scott O’Dell- Island of the Blue Dolphins, a young Indian girl is the sole survivor of an isolated island of the coast of California for eighteen years. Jean Craighead George- My Side of the Mountain, a young boy survives alone in the Catskill Mountains.

Similar Authors and Works (Nonfiction): Gary Paulsen- Guts: The True Stories behind “Hatchet” and the Brian Books.