Interesting. Whereas the previous book of this series, Brian's Return, picks up the story at the end of The River (the first sequel to 1988 Newbery Honoree Hatchet), Brian's Hunt instead follows Brian's Winter, the alternate sequel to Hatchet. Rather than Brian serendipitously releasing a radio signal from the airplane's communicator at the bottom of the lake adjacent to where he was stranded in the Canadian wilderness and subsequently being rescued, he had to bunker down and withstand the ungodly winter of the extreme American north. After making it through the worst of winter, he found refuge with a Cree trapper named David Smallhorn and his family, who contacted the authorities and arranged to reunite Brian with his parents. Whether or not the events of The River and Brian's Return can be finessed to fit with this alternative plot that leads to Brian's Hunt, our now sixteen-year-old protagonist has all the connections and bonus knowledge of the outdoors he accrued in Brian's Winter, and his ties to the Smallhorn family are key to what happens next as he returns to the wilderness life with his parents' consent. After beating the odds to survive his first stint in the wild, Brian has found it difficult to reintegrate with his former life. His instincts are honed to such a sharp edge that he reverts to fight-or-flight response too easily, and that makes him do inappropriate things in urbane society. Brian finds that he's happier living isolated in the woods, at least for periods of time. He's not planning to forsake his parents and modern existence completely, but the new Brian needs plenty of alone time if he's to live up to social expectations when he's back in civilization. The vast Canadian bush is his home now, as much as the house he shares with his mother, and he grows more comfortable with that reality each time he ventures into the forest and reconnects with the part of his soul he left there.

The ability to hunt from a canoe is Brian's decisive advantage over his woodland prey. Birds, fish, moose, and bears mentally register the small, drifting boat as a log, giving Brian opportunity to get a close shot with his bow and arrow. Brian had to develop proper hunting technique right away to survive his first go-round in the wild, and his skills rarely fail now. More often than not, however, he passes up open shots at large animals that would provide plentiful game, unwilling to kill anything he can't cook and consume before most of the meat spoils. But Brian's focus changes when a big dog seeks him out along the riverbank, badly injured and crying for help. As Brian tends to the Malamute's serious wounds, he tries to figure what could have caused the deep, slashing cuts in the animal's magnificent fur. The nature of the damage points to a wolf or bear, but this dog is clearly domesticated, so why would she have left her master after a ferocious animal hurt her? Wouldn't it make sense to seek treatment from her master for the bloody lacerations she sustained? Every avenue of speculation leads to a dead end for Brian, but his instincts urge him to follow the river immediately in his canoe with the dog, toward the island inhabited by David Smallhorn and his wife and children, to find out if they can shed light on the disquieting mystery. Heading north as quickly as possible, Brian can't shake the dread filling his stomach, the primal apprehension that something awful beyond description awaits up north even as he knows he must go there and confront it.

In the same spirit of unrestricted frontier warfare that defined Brian's Return, Brian's Hunt winds rapidly toward its whirlwind climax, a battle of wilderness savvy between man and beast that both cannot survive. Brian has sought sanctuary in the bush not because he enjoys slaughtering animals for food or in self-defense, but because his kinship with the wild is as natural and sublime as man's reflexive breathing. He doesn't derive any thrill from killing animals, but recognizes that feeding on them is necessary for autonomous sustenance out here away from convenience stores and banks. Killing is sometimes required to stop a predatory threat, as well, or to right a wrong when a savage animal crosses the line and perpetrates violence against humans that can't be ignored or tolerated. Brian understands these rules of nature as well as anyone, but he's also starting to discover a wilderness concept that's new to him: Man, even should he desire to be by himself, needs the company of others. He needs someone to share his thoughts between extended silences, to help bear his existential burden by kindling a fire of friendship to ward off the dismal cold of aloneness as surely as a campfire emits lifesaving heat on deathly winter nights. Without fire, man can't survive long in the bush, but without a friend he can't truly live, and for the first time since his airplane crashed in the wilderness when he was thirteen, Brian feels the benefits of kinship when he takes the injured dog under his wing and they team up to face the horror that chased the dog from home. Their journey will change everything for boy and dog.

The fourth and fifth Brian's Saga novels aren't as captivating as Hatchet, The River, and Brian's Winter, but they make their own valuable contribution to the series. Brian's Return has been described as Henry David Thoreau for the junior set, and there's some of that naturalistic philosophy in Brian's Hunt, the acceptance and espousal of harsh realities about man living as part of nature and the footprint he leaves regardless of how conscientious he is to limit it. Aside from the excitement of the climactic pursuit, Brian's Hunt makes salient points about our need for relationships, the validation we find in the presence of others no matter how much a loner we fancy ourselves. People need each other, there's no getting around that. The question is, what will we do to address that need? I might consider giving Brian's Hunt two and a half stars, and I never tire of being transported by Gary Paulsen to settings of wilderness intrigue that can be found right here in our contemporary world. We're better off for having been influenced by Brian's Saga, and I hope the series helps readers discover truths about themselves and the wondrous world surrounding them forever. That's a legacy befitting Gary Paulsen, and I have little doubt it will come to fulfillment.

Read in an hour, sitting at the library. Yes, I sat at a library reading on my day off.

I believe that the Gary Paulsen's main idea of Brian's Hunt was to show how a boy can overcome being in a plane crash and getting stranded on an island, and then two years later go back into the wilderness by himself. The book takes place in the wilderness, with Brian alone in the wilderness. This book is told in third person limited. Brian Roberson is the main character and he is in the wilderness for the first time by himself, just two years after he was in a plane crash. He is a little bit timid at first, but throughout the book he starts to enjoy the wilderness. Brian refers to his parents a lot in this book. Brian tries to think of ways to get his parents back together throughout the book, but every time he realizes that his parents will never get back together. Brian overcomes many of the obstacles that the wilderness brings and is very brave throughout the book.

Brian tries to think of ways to get his parents back together throughout the book, but every time he realizes why his parents will never get back together. "He did not hate his parents. He loved them. He'd wanted to see if there was some way he could make the two worlds work together, but he could not; their world was ugly to him and was filled with awful tastes and smells." This shows that even though Brian could try to make his parents get back together, it would never work. Brian's Hunt made me think about and understand how brave a person has to be to go back into the wilderness by their self or go back into any scary place for that matter, just two years after you went trough something as bad as being in a plane crash and being lost in the wilderness by yourself. This book ok. I thought that it could have been better. One example of how the book could have been better was that Gary Paulsen could have made the book describe the title and make the title make sense. I would recommend this book to someone who likes adventure.

The best of the bunch. All it took was a dog to tip the scales.

All my reviews can be found at: http://jessicasreadingroom.com
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This review will appear on my site on May 28, 2021.
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As a part of May’s prompt for #Diverseathon2021 I listened to the Brian’s Saga series by Gary Paulsen and I have finally reached the last in the series: Brian’s Hunt.

Brian’s Hunt seems to pick up where Brian’s Return left off. This time Brian has a friend with him: He finds a severely injured dog that he takes care of. He begins to worry over the Cree Indian family who he has become friends with. In the ‘what if’ novel Brian’s Winter Brian comes across this family and they ‘rescue’ him and take care of him for several weeks before being able to go home. I still have confusion on if Brian’s Winter is actually not a what if scenario and did actually happen since the next books reference things that happen in that novel.

This is a bit of spoiler, but this novel will not be for the sensitive or younger readers as to what happens to the Cree family. They meet their untimely fate at the hands of a bear and the novel is descriptive in how Brian finds the family. Because of this Brian becomes determined to find the bear and he goes on his hunt.

I did enjoy listening to this series. I do recommend it for teenage boys, as our protagonist is a boy and we don’t get many of those in middle grade/ YA novels. Those novels tend to have female leads. I did not know it was a series until I decided I was going to read Hatchet for Diverseathon, and seeing they were all of a shorter length, I decided to ‘go all out’ and listen to the whole series as all were available through the Libby App. The only thing I was not a ‘fan’ of was the music added to try and enhance the suspenseful parts. I can see how the music would work for some but not others such as myself since I listen to these books while driving and the music was distracting at times.

The Brian’s Saga is recommended!

Decent ending to the five book series, but this one felt even a bit more contrived a scenario than the fourth book. Overall, very entertaining.

There's no emotional depth despite there being some intense plot points. Brian is weirdly obsessed with a girl he's never met. He's a Marty Sue in that everything comes so easily too him. I find it ironic that there's a dig about Jack London being ill-informed yet Brian feeds the dog fish bones which could kill it and goes after a ginormous bear with only a 45-lb draw bow, which he doesnt end up using and instead kills it by stabbing it with arrows instead....of which it only takes two and Brian walks away relatively unscathed. *rolls eyes* There's very little point to this story and Im glad it was so short or I definitely wouldn't have finished it.

Intense read with such a strong pull into Brian's world to know what has gone wrong. It is a gripping tale that rings true to life. Excellent read. Interesting. Engaging. A strong finish for such a wonderful book series. My son and I who read them all together are changed by them. We are closer for it. Highly recommended reading individually, as a class, and even as a family.

The book "Brian's Hunt" was a good book. I would recommend this book to people who love the wilderness and a good adventure. The reading comprehension level would be good for middle school aged kids. This book was about a kid named Brian who went out in the wilderness to see a couple of his trapping friends. First, he canoed, hunted, and spent nights sleeping in the wilderness. He slept most of the nights in his canoe. When he was in the middle of the lake he heard a light whimpering from a dog he spotted on the bank. The dog had been slashed open by something big. After he picked up the dog, he made it to the island where he thought his trapping friends were. Once he searched around the island, he found their dead bodies. He then noticed his canoe was missing. This book has a lot of good suspension which is why I would read it again!

This book is horrible.

“Brian’s Hunt” by Gary Paulsen, is the fifth book in the series. It is about a teenager named Brian who loves the outdoors. He is on a 56 day journey on an island in which he learns to live off the land. While alone on the island he is rescued by a family who lives there. One night he heard a dog whimpering and went to see what was wrong. The dog turned out to be hurt. It had a big cut in the side, in which he fixes up with fishing line. He then realizes it is a house dog and heads out to find the family. He ends up finding both parents were mauled by a bear and their daughter is nowhere to be found. He finally finds her hiding in a boat and tells her what has happened. Brian is now on a mission to kill the bear. He finds the bear and ends up killing it.


Brain is the main character in the book. He is a 16 year old boy who is an avid outdoorsman. He is very down to earth and shows a ton of bravery by killing the bear.


The setting of the story is on an unnamed island that Brian ends up on. This could take place at anytime. The setting is very well described and makes for great illustrations throughout the book.


The main theme in the book is bravery. It takes so much bravery to go kill the bear with basically his hands. Also for being brave enough in general just to stay in the woods for such a long time.

I would rate this book a four out of five because it overall is a great story but it does drags on a little bit. I would recommend “Brian’s Hunt”, to fifth grade and up. If you enjoy hunting or an outdoor story this is a good book to read.Both girls and boys would enjoy this book.

Brian's Hunt is a good book. This time Brian is back in the wilderness, because there is something missing from his life. When he gets to the forest he finds a dog. He thinks the dog belongs to the Cree trapping family. The dog is hurt so Brian tries to take care of it. Brian doesn't know what did it so he thinks it was a bear,but doesn't know for shore so it could be anything. So Brian goes to the Crees house and every thing is torn up and Susans parents are dead. he wondered where she is but i cant tell you. you will have to find out it is the last book so it is really exciting.
The theme of the book is survival. Brain has too hunt for food, build shelter, stay away from dangerous animals and much, much more. Don't be afraid is one of the authors meanings in the book, I mean he finds a dog that is practically shredded on one side and he wants to find out who or what did it that is pretty brave.A symbol of survival is the dog, the dog is basically falling apart and he survives the whole book. People should read this book because it is short (for those of you who like short books), it is a good book and there are some survival skills in the book.