“Hatchet” by Gary Paulson

“Hatchet” tells the story of thirteen year old Brian and the plane crash he experiences on his way to visit his father. While Brian thinks back to the events leading to his parents separation, the pilot suddenly goes into cardiac arrest, and despite Brian’s efforts, he is eventually forced to land the plane upon a lake in the middle of the woods. Upon escaping the plane, Brian is then forced to find shelter, food and water in order survive what he believes will be a brief period of time within the woods. While he is initially hopeless in his survival attempts, Brian soon builds himself a shelter and grows to be an expert fisher and hunter. The book jumps over a brief period of time, and Brian suddenly matures from a dependent child living day to day to an incredibly mature teenager, capable of surviving his inescapable surroundings. Shortly after he realizes that the survival pack is still in the body of the plane, Brian creates a make shift raft and spends the entirety of a day rafting to the plane to obtain the pack. Just as he cooks his first freeze dried meal, a pilot lands upon the lake and rescues him.
I had a difficult time at the beginning of this story as it focuses primarily on flashbacks, with an abundance of repetition, yet the story continuously improved as I read on. I would suggest this story for middle school students, and potentially ninth graders, but I think that it is too young for students above ninth grade. I was very intrigued by this story, and the tactics Brian uses to survive. I think that if I were teaching a middle school class, or even a late elementary school class, I would teach this as a whole class book. I think that in order to effectively teach this book, I would teach it alongside “Lost on a Mountain in Maine,” by Donn Fendler. Both of these works can be classified as at adventure novels, and I think that these two novels could capture the attention of many students.
A final thought on this book is its value as a read aloud story. I rented the audio CD of “Hatchet” and was attached throughout the entirety of the novel. In this sense, I think that I would like to use this book either as a read aloud or at stations where students may listen to books on CD rather than being forced to physically read each book. While I intend to ask students to read individually from their books on several occasions, I think that read alouds are incredibly valuable, and that the descriptions within this novel are enhanced by listening rather than reading “Hatchet.”