Hatchet (novel)
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 First edition cover |
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| Author | Gary Paulsen |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Series | Brian Robeson |
| Subject(s) | language arts |
| Genre(s) | Young adult novel |
| Publisher | Bradbury Press |
| Released | 30 September, 1987 |
| Media type | Hardcover and Paperback |
| Pages | 195 p. (first edition, hardback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-02-770130-1 (first edition, hardback) |
| Followed by | Brian's Winter |
Hatchet is a 1987 Newbery Honor award-winning wilderness survival novel written by Gary Paulsen.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
In Hatchet, thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson is stranded alone in the Canadian wilderness. While traveling in a Cessna 406 to visit his father in the Canadian oil fields, the pilot suffers a fatal heart attack, and Brian must crash-land the plane. The plane sinks in a remote lake, and Brian is left with only his clothes and a time-tested hatchet his mother has given him; his only survival tool. Brian figures out how to make fire by striking the blade of the hatchet on a rock, which is later revealed to be flint. He forces himself to eat whatever food he can find, such as turtle eggs. He deals with a porcupine, bear, skunk, moose, and a tornado. He eventually becomes quite a craftsman, crafting a bow and arrows to hunt birds and fishing with a spear.
During his isolation, Brian reflects on his parents' recent divorce, and the dark secret only he knows: his mother was having an affair with another man.
Brian was saved when a violent storm hits the woods, tossing the plane wreckage to the surface. Brian breaks into the plane and recovers the plane's survival pack, which contains an emergency transmitter. Brian activates the transmitter, and is rescued by a fur trader who came in a water plane. However, in an alternate ending sequel, Brian's Winter, the novel supposedly ends with having Brian not yet rescued, and with winter looming ahead. In Brian's Winter, the only change to the story was that Brian did not activate the emergency transmitter in the plane, which causes him to not be rescued.
[edit] Other Books
Paulsen followed Hatchet with four additional novels about Brian. In the first, Brian's Winter, Paulsen answers (by popular demand, he says) the question of what would have happened if Brian had been forced to spend a winter in the Canadian wilderness.
This is an alternate version of the story of Hatchet, in which Brian does not use the survival pack radio to call for help. In Paulsen's second sequel to Hatchet, The River, a government agent asks Brian to return to the Canadian wilderness-about 100 miles from his original camp-and show him how he managed to survive. The agent gets struck by lightning and falls into a coma, leaving Brian to construct a raft to transport him to a trading post. The third additional novel, titled Brian's Return, tells the story of Brian returning to the Canadian wilderness in a canoe, aptly named the Raft, a gift given to him at the end of the book, The River.
In 2003, Paulsen wrote Brian's Hunt, in which Brian finds an injured dog while in his canoe. He thinks that the dog belongs to trappers, so he goes to his Indian friends to ask if anyone lost a dog. When he arrives at their house, he finds the mauled bodies of his friends. He finds out a bear killed them and noticed that one of their daughters is missing. He later finds her in a canoe out on the lake and goes to hunt the bear. He finds it after a couple of days and kills it in hand-to-hand combat.
[edit] Awards and nominations
Newbery Honors award-winning novel
[edit] Film, TV and theatrical adaptations
Hatchet was made into a TV movie in 1990 entitled A Cry in the Wild.
| Works of Gary Paulsen |
|---|
| Brian series: Hatchet • Brian's Return • Brian's Winter • The River • Brian's Hunt Tucket series: Mr. Tucket • Call Me Francis Tucket • Tucket's Ride • Tucket's Gold • Tucket's Home • Tucket's Travels World of Adventure Series: Captive! • Curse of the Ruins • Danger on Midnight River • Escape from Fire Mountain historical novels: The Quilt • Alida's Song • Soldier's Heart • Nightjohn • Sarny comical books:The Amazing Life of Birds The Twenty-Day Puberty Journal of Duane Homer Leech • Molly McGinty Has a Really Good Day • The Glass Cafe: Or the Stripper and the State; How My Mother Started a War with the System That Made Us Kind of Rich and a Little Bit Famous • The Boy Who Owned the School • The Schernoff Discoveries • Harris and Me other: Canoe Days • The Beet Fields • The White Fox Chronicles • The Transall Saga • The Rifle •The Tent • Dogteam • The Car • A Christmas Sonata • The Monument •The Haymeadow • Woodsong • The Night the White Deer Died • Canyons • The Winter Room •The Voyage of the Frog • The Island • The Crossing non-fiction:How Angel Petersen Got His Name • Caught by the Sea • Guts: The True Stories Behind Hatchet and the Brian Books • Father Water, Mother Woods • My Life in Dog Years • Puppies, Dogs, and Blue Northers |
