Hatchet By Gary Paulsen

BLOG BY:
LOGAN GRINDY

GENRE: Fiction - Adventure

I was having trouble finding a novel to read for my independent reading project so i asked my mom for help because she has read many books. I told her that i wanted to read a book about adventure that will always keep me on my toes. I love reading books that make me want to keep reading on to find out what happens next. She instantly suggested that i read Hatchet. When my mom told me that it was by Gary Paulsen i was sold. Gary Paulsen is the author of one of my favorite books, Brian's Hunt, so i knew it would be smart decision. Also, Hatchet is a Newbery Honor award-winning book so i knew i would not be disappointed.

After surviving a plane crash into a lake in the middle of the woods, Brian Robeson is lost and alone in the Canadian wilderness. The plane he was flying to visit his father lies at the bottom of the lake with a dead pilot inside of it. When a search plane flies over Brian and doesn't notice him, Brian starts to get severely depressed. However, after failing at attempting suicide Brian realizes that feeling sorry for himself doesn't work. He now realizes what he must do to survive.

The only tool Brian has is a hatchet his mother had given him before he had left on the plane. Using this tool he must learn to provide food and shelter for himself. Considering that he has no background survival skills this could be a tough task. Overcoming his often troublesome flashbacks of his parents divorce is a challenge for Brian, but as time goes on the less it hurts him. Brian encounters way more setbacks and frustrations than successes while coming up with survival tactics. Survival will not be easy for Brian. Luckily, he has great perserverance and will do anything it takes to survive.

The title "hatchet" has great significance. In the beginning of the story, Brian's mother gives him a hatchet to take on his visit. However, the hatchet becomes Brian's greatest survival tool. Without the hatchet he would have never been able to survive. Brian uses his hatchet to gather materials to build his shelter as well as food for himself to eat. Also, Brian uses the hatchet as a type of weapon to protect himself. Most importantly, towards the end of the book Brian builds a raft and floats over to where the back half of the plane is sticking out of the water. This is because he remembered the pilot mentioning something about keeping a survival kit in the plane. Brian uses his hatchet to cut through the steel to get inside the plane because he could not get in the plane using just his bare hands. Inside the plane he finds the survival kit. Inside this survival kit he finds a transmitter and he puts out a rescue signal. He is rescued the next day by a man who had recieved the signal. Therefore, the hatchet is the reason that Brian was able to be rescued.

I would ask Gary Paulsen:


"Do you enjoy the wilderness?"

I was wondering this because throughout the story such great detail was used to decribe things that Brian encountered while he was in the wild. I wondered if you had spent time in the wilderness while you were growing up as well because i could tell from reading the book you have a lot of knowledge about the wilderness.

"Were you ever put in a situation where you were required to use survival skills?"

Throughout the story Brian kept using skills and tactics that were extremely clever. I knew that I would never have been able to come up with the ideas that Brian had. I wondered if you were writing about some of the survival skills that you had learned growing up and if you had used them at a point in your life.

"Did your parents divorce when you were a child?"

I noticed that in the book you always expressed Brian's feelings about his parent's divorce. The feelings he felt were so deep and vivid that it seemed as if you had experienced the same type of thing during your childhood. I was wondering if maybe you had those same feelings when you were Brian's age.