Thirteen year old Brian is the only survivor of a plane crash in the Canadian wilderness. Armed with the hatchet his mother gave him before he left on this trip to see his father, Brian is faced with surviving in a harsh world where there is no one to hand him food, shelter or safety. Brian slowly solves one problem after another and makes some mistakes along the way. Can he survive? As he creates his new world, he spends time sorting through his parents' divorce. This is a great read for boys who look for adventure and who understand that as they grow into men, they will need to figure out the questions and the answers for themselves. A great coming of age/survival/wilderness story. Several sequels follow-Brian's Winter, Brian's Return and The River.
192 pages 978-1416936473 Ages 10 and up
Keywords: survival, self reliance, wilderness, nature, coming of age, action/adventure, 10 year old, 11 year old, 12 year old, 13 year old, 14 year old, part of a series, outdoors
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This award-winning contemporary classic is the survival story with which all others are compared—and a page-turning, heart-stopping adventure, recipient of the Newbery Honor. Hatchet has also been nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read.
Thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson, haunted by his secret knowledge of his mother’s infidelity, is traveling by single-engine plane to visit his father for the first time since the divorce. When the plane crashes, killing the pilot, the sole survivor is Brian. He is alone in the Canadian wilderness with nothing but his clothing, a tattered windbreaker, and the hatchet his mother had given him as a present.
At first consumed by despair and self-pity, Brian slowly learns survival skills—how to make a shelter for himself, how to hunt and fish and forage for food, how to make a fire—and even finds the courage to start over from scratch when a tornado ravages his campsite. When Brian is finally rescued after fifty-four days in the wild, he emerges from his ordeal with new patience and maturity, and a greater understanding of himself and his parents.---from the publisher
