Best survival book i have read in my lifetime. I hope the tornado hit the moose.

basically, Biran is the main character in the story, he is getting on a plane to go visit his father; his parents are divorced. he also has a giant burden on his back, his mother was having an affair.
before he leaves , his mother gives him a hatchet. after, he sets off, he talks with the pilot and has a little fun by piloting the airplane swerving and swoppoing up and down. until suddenly, the pilot has a heartattack becasue of gas and dies. brian is forced to fly the plane himself, but until the fuel runs out, he stops at a lake to kind of softne the impact.
he wakes upon a beach.
this starts him on his new journey, a journey to survive. this is kind of a rebirth for him; he learns to do things he would nt neccesarily do in life, but now that he has to, he is. he learns how to survive, he fends off cretures such as skinks, porcupines, bears, and mooses; he is able to be keep himself from starvation by findinf food among trees and the creatures of the wild such as fowls and rabbits and fish. he also creates his own shelter, fire,, his own weapons for hunting, a pond for which he keeps a stock of fish, and a list of things he makes so that his life is a little bit ore easier than it is in the wild( even though its not that easy in the first place). basically, one day, a tornado rips his location apart. he still survives, but when he goes outside, he sees that the plane he flew in was flipped up. he then figures out that there was a survival pack in the back of the plane; he goes and retireves it.
after hard work, he ravages through the bag. he finds his own riches such as pots and pans, food, guns, radio which he immedialitey uses. he then feasts on packs of food and drink from the survival pack.
until a plane comes and lands in the lake. he steps out and sees brian.
the stroy ends with the epilouge wchich tells of brian and how he was the kid people had been looking for for over two months. how he had no fat in hsi body anymore and exploited the area in which he lived in and ws able to survive in.

i really enjoyed this story. it seems like one of the stories that you know you can learn from if youre ever in brians situation. i know that if i was in the wilderness near a lake, i could proibably reenact his actions to survive; but id most defintiely need a hatchet, or he and i would naver ever be able to pull anything off. .....awesome story:)

3.5 stars I forgive you for eating the turtle eggs, Brian.

Read for our classics readalong series! Discussion next Friday 5/29 on the blog.

What I learned from Hatchet:

1. If you see a man grimacing in pain, it could be a heart attack. If this man is the pilot of a charter prop plane that you're flying alone in, you could be fucked.

2. If you eat mysterious berries, they just might give you severe diarrhea. And, having just been marooned in a plane crash, you could lack the proper facilities to expel the diarrhea within. So, you could end up shitting your brains out in a cave. Since the tender age of 9, when I glanced upon the pages of this book, I have had a fear in regards to shitting in the wild. Fuck you, Gary Paulsen.

ok I read this like 8 years ago but I remember it pretty well? it's not bad but survival books aren't my thing so this was kinda boring

It was fine, but just flat out NOT MY CUP OF TEA. Great if you like you like this kinda thing—boy surviving in the wild, but...I don’t know. Just...I don’t know. All I really remember about it was thinking it was slow and when is it going to end?(because I read this for school, so I had to finish it) I remember a body in the water. Yeah. And a plane crash. And spearing fish. That’s about it

Hatchet is a story about a young boy (Brian) struggling to survive after his plane crashes in a forest. He was traveling by airplane from the United States to Canada to see his father when the pilot suddenly had a heart attack. Brian lands the plane, but now he’s injured--and all alone with nothing but the hatchet his mother gave him. As Brian strives to find ways to survive, he learns and adapts to the new environment, but he faces many challenges with animals and the elements. Left to survive on his instincts and what he’s learned in the past, Brian ponders over his family situation and deals with many emotions. He’s a strong boy and becomes quite resourceful, but can he survive the Canadian wilderness?

Gary Paulsen is one of my favorite authors, and it all started with this book, Hatchet. This book unequivocally is a favorite from childhood, and this is probably my third or fourth time reading it in my lifetime. This story never gets old.

Brian is a relatable character, and what he’s going through feels real; in fact, this book reads like nonfiction, in my opinion. It’s adventurous, engrossing, and full of suspense. Not only that, it’s thought-provoking and makes you ask questions about what you'd do in a similar situation. How prepared would you be? Do you have what it takes to survive? What’s it like to be completely alone in the wilderness? It can make your imagination run wild, and maybe that’s just one of the reasons why kids enjoy this story so much.

Readers who enjoy the outdoors or those who like survival stories will likely enjoy this book. This is a middle-grade book, but I’ve read it multiple times in adulthood and have enjoyed it all the same. Something I love about this story is Brian’s perseverance and how he learns from his mistakes. There are important lessons to learn. It’s a good story for boys, but girls will likely enjoy it too. The writing makes this a quick and easy read, but the book explores death, survival, divorce, anger, and even suicidal thoughts. Hatchet is a book I would personally recommend for young readers who struggle with reading or those who don't have an interest in reading. Definitely use your own discretion on whether your reader can handle these deeper themes though.

Hatchet is book #1 in the Brian’s Saga series. I’ve read them all and will read them again and again. This is a series I’d recommend to anyone. The audio by Peter Coyote is amazing and perfectly sets the tone for this book. My kids enjoyed it along with their physical copies.

4.5-stars

You can also see this review @readrantrockandroll.com

Thrilling story that takes place in the wild! I remember reading this book in middle school and when I saw it at the library, I decided to pick it up and read it again. I think I enjoyed it a lot more this time around since it wasn’t required for a school assignment haha. Very compelling and I cared about the main character and what happened to him throughout the book. It was cool watching his progress from being a scared boy to a courageous man. Nice easy read which I always love, too.

This was a favorite book of mine as a young kid and I remember why!! Such a page turning survival story! 13 year old, Brian Robeson, is flying in a small plane to meet his father, when all of a sudden his pilot has a heart attack and dies mid flight. Brian is scared to death and doesn't know what to do....he manages to get the plane down but he's alone in the Canadian wilderness and no one knows where he is....we see his journey of survival with nothing but a hatchet and his windbreaker take place. It's emotional and fast paced from the very beginning. I have to give this 5 stars just because of the level of engagement I had from the moment I picked this book up. He's also keeping a secret about his mother after his parent's divorce and he continues to relive some of that trauma.

I realize now that I LOVE survival stories!

Though the story was compelling, very compelling, compelling enough that I finished it despite the compelling urge to throw it out the window, I don't think I could ever read it again. The window, oh the shiny window, the shiny open window was very tempting. This book was so repetitious, why so repetitious, I know not why this book was so repetitious, but the repetitions made me want to pull my hair out. My brown hair, the brown hair on my head, the hair that was brown that was on my head.

I did listen to it on CD, which might have been part of the problem. Bruce said he didn't notice it as much when he read the book, but when you read it, your mind kind of skips over things, things that might be repetitious, the repetitious things might have been skipped over that make you want to pull your hair out and throw the book out the window.

I taught this to my sixth graders, who had a hard time believing it was a classic. So did I, at times. Gary Paulsen takes some extreme liberties with the repetition, and there are some grammatical errors scattered throughout the book.

You can't beat that plot, though! Although there are some dry parts of the book where Brian just mopes around, for the most part it is easy for the average sixth grader to put himself or herself in Brian's shoes. It also made everyone want to go out and buy a hatchet for no reason. And we all felt really bad for Brian's dad.

Edit: I taught it again and I am really not a fan of Gary Paulsen's writing style. Baroque for four sentences and then suddenly. Staccato.

I will be honest: I didn't really enjoy this book. And I even had high expectations because it's the recipient of the Newbery Honor.

I had just read “The Life of Pi” a few weeks ago and enjoyed it immensely despite its otherwise relatively boring, dialogue-less narrative – one that can be expected from a book about a shipwrecked teenage boy (albeit with a Bengal tiger for company). This children's book, Hatchet, had a similar plot: thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson was on his way to see his father in Canada when the single-engine plane that he was riding on plummets to a lake in the Canadian forests, and he is forced to try and survive on his own – with only the hatchet that his mother had given him for company (if you could call it that). He spends more days in the wilderness than he would have wanted to, so in that sense, he and Pi share a lot in common.

But the similarities stop there, in my opinion. Whereas Pi was so engaging and well-written, Hatchet bored my mind silly. There were times that I was even skeptical about what Brian had supposedly done in order to survive; to me, it just didn't seem possible for a 13-year-old to have done things like that in real life. The book just made everything about foraging and hunting and living in the wild seem so easy when they, of course, are not.

I'm hoping I'll enjoy Gary Paulsen's other books. I still have several in my TBR.