Hatchet by Gary Paulsen

Every Thursday, as a part of being a Nanny, I drive the 10 year-old and her friends to dance. Today they were talking about a book that they have been reading in class and what was interesting was that I read that same book in school when I was that age. The book is Hatchet by Gary Paulsen.

Hatchet is the story of a 13 year-old boy named Brian. The story opens when Brian is on his way to visit his father in northern Canada, and still coping with his parents divorce. Prior to boarding a single-engine plane, Brian receives a hatchet as a present from his mother. He would never guess how critically important that hatchet would become to his physical, mental, and emotional survival. Brian ends up having to pilot and land the plane alone due to the pilot’s heart attack and death. Brian lands in water and becomes stranded in the Canadian wilderness for 54 days. He then must learn to exist in this wilderness and faces many dangers including hunger, animal attacks, and even a tornado.

This book gives the readers a better understanding of what it is like to survive in an untamed land. How someone survives is as individual as a fingerprint yet it is one of the most universal emotions for humans. Hatchet forces the reader to really think about what he or she would do if abandoned in the wild.