Hatchet

I read this with my 12 year old for his summer reading project. Some of the best time we have had in a while.

This book aged well. Being that it is set in the outdoors with an absence of modern, and not so modern technology makes enjoyable and relatable to today's youth.

I recommend this for boys and girls both ages 10 and up. Adults will enjoy this as well. Anyone interested in a book about coming of age surviving in the wild, or just an engaging story.

Brian, a 13-year-old boy, is on his way to visit his father on a two-person plane. Suddenly, the pilot has a heart-attack and the plane crashes, leaving Brian to survive on his own in the Canadian wilderness. Armed with his trusty hatchet, Brian must figure out how to find food and shelter while he waits for help. All the while, he recalls painful memories of home, including his parent's recent divorce and his mom's affair.


This was a very engrossing book and I found myself on the edge of my seat wondering if Brian would survive. It was very entertaining to see how Brian used the things around him to the best of his ability, even though he didn't have much prior knowledge of survival. This book helps to illustrate how it can be an enthralling read with just one main character. The author did like to repeat a lot of phrases, though, which I found distracting.

⭐
I just didn't like this book, at all. Most likely I DNF'd it (did not finish). I would not recommend it to anyone and it is poorly written and definitely not for me. This book was just awful.

This book was so boring that if I wasn't forced to read it for school I never would have finished it in a million years. Slow moving story that I found to be repetitive when it came to numerous situations. Now, I was pretty young when I read it which could be why I didn't enjoy it. But I have no desire to pick it up and give it another try.

I read this in school in junior high. It's okay, but I'm just not into the “wilderness kid” type books. Why are so many required reading in school?

I remember this book fondly as a kid, I like the survival aspect and burning a $20 bill to help make a fire was pretty mind blowing in 5th grade. Having to re-learn things that are easy in society to survive was really interesting. That being said, this story held up well to my nostalgia goggles, the story is still compelling and short enough to hold my attention all the way through. I listen to this on audiobook and maybe I shouldn't have. The writing style is very repetitive, to the point it was driving me nuts! This book could have been a little shorter if he didn't re-phrase everything! I would like it at some points for emphasis on Brian's thoughts, but it was a constant through out the book.

~Ashley

I re-read this on a whim when my brother mentioned he was teaching it to his class; I'd read this when I was a child. It's still a fun little story, worth the 30 or 40 minutes it took to read.

4/5

Was it just me, or would you guys have checked you know where first?

Wow! I really enjoyed reading this. It's a fast-paced adventure in the Canadian wilderness.

“Hatchet” has been on my to-read list for a long time. As I got closer to the end of 2021 and was trying to hit my reading goal for the year, it seemed like a good time to finally pick this one up.

I chose to listen to the audiobook version from the library via Libby. The audiobook is narrated by the actor, Peter Coyote. Peter's narration and the production of the audiobook are quite good.

Other than that, I cannot recommend this book, nor do I see why it's so lauded. From the beginning, the story is quite thin.

The Secret that so haunts our hero, while traumatic to a younger child, was built up and overdone. Many other reviewers have criticized the repetitiveness of this book. In some ways, some of the repetitiveness makes sense because the day-to-day life of someone stranded would be rather repetitive. Other parts of the repetitiveness seemed like padding to me capped off with an ending that was a little too convenient.

Brian is on his way to visit his father when the plane that he is riding in crashes. The pilot suffers a heart attack, and he and Brian are lost to the wilderness. Brian knows that he has to survive, and he needs to do what it takes to get through the days until he is found. He begins to build a shelter, learns to make a fire, and then learns to hunt for the food that he needs to survive where he is. He is not sure how long he is going to be there until someone finds him.
As he works through the days, he finds the ups and downs of being alone. He learns to rely on himself, and the inner strength that he did not know he had.
It is not until a tornado rips through the area that he is able to finally see the plane again, and then he remembers, there is a survival pack. He works to put together a raft and then swims out to the plane to see what he can salvage from the wreck. He is not sure what he will find, or if he will be able to get out of the plane again when he gets in....

This was a great read! I am looking forward to reading this book out loud to the boys!

I wanted more to be resolved between his parents and also between himself and his parents. However Paulsen did a magnificent job of limiting his story to the events of the crash and not adding stuff in just to make a happy ending. He wrote a realistic piece of fiction. It was wonderful.

meh... I didn't like this book when I read it in middle school. I still don't like it.

Minecraft: The Book.

Brian is headed for a summer visit with his father in Canada when the pilot of his plane has a heart attack and dies. Somehow Brian manages to land the plane, but he is in the middle of nowhere and he has little to help him survive in the wilds. Except his hatchet.


Action. Adventure. Scary encounters with animals. Big mosquitoes. Tenacity. It is all in this book.

1/5 stars

This book was not for me. Even after years of reading this book for English class, I still can't get over how boring it was. I was originally excited, considering how all my friends were glad that book got chosen over Bud, Not Buddy (we ended up reading both), which I preferred.

From the beginning, I had multiple issues with the book. I didn't understand the parents' involvement, the hatchet being given as a gift, and just how uninteresting it was in general.

Number 1, I had high expectations for this, considering how much my friends praised it. From the beginning, I was generally uninterested in the story. I tried to give it a chance and to see if the book would get more interesting.

Number 2, what type of mother gives their child a hatchet. They didn't give any concepts. Did the mother come from a hunting family? Is it symbolic? All I understood was that she gave it to him as a sort of apology for having to deal with her divorcing his dad.

Number 3, the parents are overall absent, other than the mom in the beginning. I feel like both of them being included in some sort of way would have been better. I feel like the mom should have been more worried about having her son go alone on an aircraft with a stranger.

I would not recommend this book at all. I feel like there are other survival stories that are more interesting than this one.

Always fun to re-read a “classic.” Students enjoyed it, but some were frustrated at the abrupt ending.

GARY PAULSEN

Paulsen throws readers right into the thick of things when Brian, the lone passenger in a private turboprop plane, must crash-land it in the middle of the Canadian Wilds when the pilot has a heart attack midflight. For nearly two months, Brian must fend for himself, armed only with the hatchet his mother gave him as a parting gift before his fateful flight. Paulsen does a great job building intensity during the plane wreck, and once Brian is surviving on the lake, there is a great sense of pacing between long quiet moments and the sharper intensities of attack and hunger that come with surviving off the land. I first read this book back in elementary school and remember thinking it was okay. This time around, I can really see the appeal the book has for boys–bears, porcupines, fishing, fool birds, even a moose attack. It might even see a resurgence as contemporary survival shows like Man vs. Wild or Survivorman become more and more popular.