Hatchet

Brian is on his way to visit his father when the plane that he is riding in crashes. The pilot suffers a heart attack, and he and Brian are lost to the wilderness. Brian knows that he has to survive, and he needs to do what it takes to get through the days until he is found. He begins to build a shelter, learns to make a fire, and then learns to hunt for the food that he needs to survive where he is. He is not sure how long he is going to be there until someone finds him.
As he works through the days, he finds the ups and downs of being alone. He learns to rely on himself, and the inner strength that he did not know he had.
It is not until a tornado rips through the area that he is able to finally see the plane again, and then he remembers, there is a survival pack. He works to put together a raft and then swims out to the plane to see what he can salvage from the wreck. He is not sure what he will find, or if he will be able to get out of the plane again when he gets in....

This was a great read! I am looking forward to reading this book out loud to the boys!

GARY PAULSEN

Paulsen throws readers right into the thick of things when Brian, the lone passenger in a private turboprop plane, must crash-land it in the middle of the Canadian Wilds when the pilot has a heart attack midflight. For nearly two months, Brian must fend for himself, armed only with the hatchet his mother gave him as a parting gift before his fateful flight. Paulsen does a great job building intensity during the plane wreck, and once Brian is surviving on the lake, there is a great sense of pacing between long quiet moments and the sharper intensities of attack and hunger that come with surviving off the land. I first read this book back in elementary school and remember thinking it was okay. This time around, I can really see the appeal the book has for boys–bears, porcupines, fishing, fool birds, even a moose attack. It might even see a resurgence as contemporary survival shows like Man vs. Wild or Survivorman become more and more popular.

Brian, a 13-year-old boy, is on his way to visit his father on a two-person plane. Suddenly, the pilot has a heart-attack and the plane crashes, leaving Brian to survive on his own in the Canadian wilderness. Armed with his trusty hatchet, Brian must figure out how to find food and shelter while he waits for help. All the while, he recalls painful memories of home, including his parent's recent divorce and his mom's affair.


This was a very engrossing book and I found myself on the edge of my seat wondering if Brian would survive. It was very entertaining to see how Brian used the things around him to the best of his ability, even though he didn't have much prior knowledge of survival. This book helps to illustrate how it can be an enthralling read with just one main character. The author did like to repeat a lot of phrases, though, which I found distracting.

⭐
I just didn't like this book, at all. Most likely I DNF'd it (did not finish). I would not recommend it to anyone and it is poorly written and definitely not for me. This book was just awful.

This book was so boring that if I wasn't forced to read it for school I never would have finished it in a million years. Slow moving story that I found to be repetitive when it came to numerous situations. Now, I was pretty young when I read it which could be why I didn't enjoy it. But I have no desire to pick it up and give it another try.

Brian is headed for a summer visit with his father in Canada when the pilot of his plane has a heart attack and dies. Somehow Brian manages to land the plane, but he is in the middle of nowhere and he has little to help him survive in the wilds. Except his hatchet.


Action. Adventure. Scary encounters with animals. Big mosquitoes. Tenacity. It is all in this book.

1/5 stars

This book was not for me. Even after years of reading this book for English class, I still can't get over how boring it was. I was originally excited, considering how all my friends were glad that book got chosen over Bud, Not Buddy (we ended up reading both), which I preferred.

From the beginning, I had multiple issues with the book. I didn't understand the parents' involvement, the hatchet being given as a gift, and just how uninteresting it was in general.

Number 1, I had high expectations for this, considering how much my friends praised it. From the beginning, I was generally uninterested in the story. I tried to give it a chance and to see if the book would get more interesting.

Number 2, what type of mother gives their child a hatchet. They didn't give any concepts. Did the mother come from a hunting family? Is it symbolic? All I understood was that she gave it to him as a sort of apology for having to deal with her divorcing his dad.

Number 3, the parents are overall absent, other than the mom in the beginning. I feel like both of them being included in some sort of way would have been better. I feel like the mom should have been more worried about having her son go alone on an aircraft with a stranger.

I would not recommend this book at all. I feel like there are other survival stories that are more interesting than this one.