Lost on a Mountain in Maine by donn fendler

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

A quick read of a true story as told snot a 12 year old boy getting lost on a mountain in Maine in 1939. I heard about this book from a BSA Scouting America newsletter and came highly recommended. I have read a number of books like this, including a favorite “Lost In The Wild” by Carey Griffith, where the mental state, as challenged as it is, keeps the lost person focused enough not to “walk off into space”. Young Donn survived on berries and was fortunate enough to have water available. He survived the truly tortuous hordes of mosquitoes and flies and got quite physically banged up but not enough to stop his incredible movement. Some modern lessons perhaps, dungarees/ blue jeans (cotton is rotten) is not good hiking clothing, using bug repellent, a hat, backpack with first aid kit, compass/gps, a map, a way to start a campfire, and super important signaling device like a whistle would help. The buddy system as promoted by scouting would have been a good argument for Donn to not run off by himself as well. I will be paying the book on to a couple of young scouts to get their reaction too.

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NuZens16

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

I thought this book was a pretty good book but there where some parts that I didn't get. Like when he was going through the creek to get past the rocks but why didn't he jus walk the bank and not lose his shoes. The book also seems like the power lines were out in the middle of nowhere, because they never gave hint that said, Ok it's by the road. The way the author wrote it was good and was also making me want to keep reading. I was a little mad at the end because when I saw the map he basically made a half circle. So if he just went a different route he wouldn't have been out there for nine days. What was my favorite part is when one of the bears is walking to him and doesn't see or smell him because he was down wind. Over all the book was good, there was some spots that I didn't quite get as much as others but it was a good book.

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Usakora

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

Spoilers.
Took place in the 1930s, there are many better books of adventure/hiking/outdoors. This is a great story of how bad decisions can lead to bad situations. Dumb book.

Here are a few examples of that:
Went hiking with a guides child
Knows he gets cold easy, got cold when it was 35 degrees
As a 12 year old decided to head back on his own thru fog against warnings
Gave the child his sweatshirt even though he was cold
Got lost in fog
Found a trail, but didn’t follow it because the trail was said to be hard
Instead of following found trail does a 90 degree tactic off of the trail?
Rips and loses shoes
Multiple mentions of being in the scouts. Learned nothing from the scouts except to tell himself to “keep his head and he’ll be okay”
Has a subsequent hallucination of white robed adults hypnotizing his friend
Looses his pants
Carries large rock with him for days
Finds pants but loses them again

Aside from the poor decisions the author uses and beats to death the same three phrases throughout the book with one on nearly every page of the 98 page book.
Referring to himself as “a fellow”, surprise written as “boy!”, and any swear word replaced with “Christmas”??

If you have an hour and want to get annoyed here’s a book. Two stars for the survival and tenacity of the kid.

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sailorcess

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

3.25-3.5 ⭐️

This was a fun/interesting listen with my daughter. True story about a boy lost on a Mountain and his journey back. God is good.

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justmon

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

I recently finished reading aloud Hatchet to two of my library classes, so this book caught my attention when I came across it incorrectly shelved in the fiction section of my library. I was interested to see how this real-life story would compare to Hatchet, which feels very real. I found quite a lot of similarities:

* Donn lived on berries and was eaten up by mosquitoes, blackflies, and other flying insects.

* Donn also came across a bear eating berries who didn't disturb him.

* Donn heard a plane that he never saw and couldn't signal, which made him very upset.

* Donn tried to make a fire with sparks using supplies he found in an old cabin, but he gave up after trying unsuccessfully for just a little bit. Brian persisted until he succeeded.

I didn't enjoy the beginning of this. It felt like it began very abruptly, just as Donn leaves his friend and gets lost. I would have liked a bit more lead-in to the story. The footnotes given by Joseph Egan helped a lot in rounding out the story, but I would have preferred having them worked into the text somehow.

While reading, I kept wondering about what was happening with Donn's family as they searched for him. I enjoyed reading the afterword, where this information was given in pretty nice detail.

Overall, I found this to be a very interesting real-life story of a boy surviving on his own in the wilderness. It wasn't nearly as well-written as Hatchet, but then not too many books are.

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speedsimp

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

Audio. A short but moving nonfiction account of a 12 year old boy getting lost in 1939 after hiking up Mount Katahdin in Maine. Its “happy ending” had me tearing up. Some decades ago, I myself hiked up Mt.Katahdin, so my own vivid memories added plenty of experiential detail; scrambling on all fours over rocky inclines was required. Going down the mountain trail was harder with muscles more tired and, in my case, with daylight fading.

When the boy thought of his “mommy” that word was a reminder of how young the boy was.

The book left me wishing for much more background about the boy Donn Fendler and his family/community and life —before and after the events.

A cautionary yet heartwarming tale… of a young boy’s thinking and coping in ways that feel “ historical” yet believably real.

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