books:

	Hatchet Gary Paulsen Aladdin, 2006 - 192 pages average customer review:based on 1156 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson is on his way to visit his father when the single-engine plane in which he is flying crashes. Suddenly, Brian finds himself alone in the Canadian wilderness with nothing but a tattered Windbreaker and the hatchet his mother gave him as a present -- and the dreadful secret that has been tearing him apart since his parent's divorce. But now Brian has no time for anger, self pity, or despair -- it will take all his know-how and determination, and more courage than he knew he possessed, to survive.

For twenty years Gary Paulsen's award-winning contemporary classic has been the survival story with which all others are compared. This new edition, with a reading group guide, will introduce a new generation of readers to this page-turning, heart-stopping adventure.

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Hatchet

Gary Paulsen's adventures of Brian are the only books my 15 year old son has ever ASKED me to buy for him. Apparently theyre a really good read.


Hatchet

(I post this verbatim review authored by my youthful nephew, Gavin -- an avid reader and bright kid):

This is a great book about survival in the outdoors. It is about a boy named Brian, who is in a plane crash in northern Canada. He is forced to make shelter, fire, and weapons to get food with only a hatchet and the strings of his shoes. This is a book great for ages 10 to 100 [no offense to the 102 year olds reading this].

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page turner

This is definitely a book that you don't want to put down!
For kids keep in mind that there are several references to his parents' divorce and his mother's seeing another man. Also, the boy attempts suicide.
My only complaint is that the main character, Brian, is a bit too...what...emotional? The writing is stream-of-consciousness and Brian is afraid of a lot, e.g. bird guts, dead people, he can't quite say "threw up" - has to say "got sick"...He comes across as delicate, but he isn't - he survives again and again. He just seems too introspective - and that really put me off.

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Survival and nature

This is a riveting novel. The character is alive, breathing and hanging on for life the whole bumpy ride. This was my second (possibly third) reading of Hatchet, and as an adult there is a lot I didn't remember and feel I missed in my previous pass of the deep language and concept that is this novel.

[...]


Content may be too mature for young readers

I was pre-reading this book for my 10-year-old who enjoys adventure stories (along the lines of "My Side of the Mountain") and was glad that I did. Some of the content of this book is NOT appropriate for this age -- for example, when the boy recalls the details of witnessing his mother engaged in an adulterous passionate kiss with her lover, which became "the Secret" his father did not know about. I'm not saying it is a bad book for an appropriately aged reader -- but I do want to warn parents looking for an innocent adventure story for their children -- this is not it.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

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