My Side of the Mountain
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| My Side of the Mountain | |
| Author | Jean Craighead George |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Children's literature |
| Publication date | 1959 |
| Pages | 208 |
| ISBN | ISBN 0140348107 |
| Followed by | On the Far Side of the Mountain |
My Side of the Mountain is a 1959 book by Jean Craighead George about a boy who learns about nature and himself. The book won the Newbery Honor Award[1] and was loosely adapted into a movie in 1969.
Set in the Catskill Mountains near Delhi, New York, My Side of the Mountain tells the fictional account of how Sam Gribley survives in the wilderness of upstate New York. George's descriptions of the flora and fauna and how Sam uses them to not only to survive but to live quite comfortably, are very detailed.
[edit] Plot Summary
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Sam Gribley runs away from his home in New York City in the month of May. He leaves with only a penknife, a ball of cord, an axe, $40 which he had saved selling magazine subscriptions, and a flint and steel set which he had purchased at a Chinese merchant's store in the city.
On his first night, Sam gets on a truck north of New York in search of his family's abandoned and overgrown farm in the Catskill Mountains. He hitchhikes to the Catskills, and spends a lonely first night in his small hemlock lean-to (a small tent-like structure that consists of a hemlock bow and a stump). He catches five trout, but fails to start a fire to cook them.
In the morning he climbs a hill and discovers a small cottage near his cold and uncomfortable camp, the residence of an old man named Bill. His host shows the inexperienced boy how to prepare and cook his fish, and - more importantly - how to make proper use of the flint and steel with which Sam had been unable to make a fire the night before.
Finding the Gribley farm, Sam establishes a dwelling in the trunk of an immense old hemlock tree, using hand-axe and fire to expand a natural hollow into a home with space for a bed, stores of gathered foodstuffs, and even a small fireplace.
As the summer passes, his skills and knowledge of the mountains and of survival grows. He learns to live off the land by hunting small game and deer and by gathering a wide variety of edible plants and nuts. He makes clothes, bedding, and other useful things from deer hide and rabbit fur.
Sam lives a free life in the wilderness for more than a year with his pet, a peregrine falcon named Frightful, whom he had captured as a chick and hand-reared. His neighbors in the forest include the free-ranging musteline "Baron" Weasel, and a racoon. Sam also encounters and "rescues" a lost school teacher whom he nicknames "Bando" because he'd first thought the teacher had been a runaway criminal when they they'd met. Bando and Sam spend the summer together, at the close of which Bando departs, promising to return at Christmas.
During the winter, Sam's father comes out to the Gribley farm in search of him. Sam, his father, and Bando enjoy a wilderness Christmas dinner, after which the visitors bid farewell, both men approving the youngster's independence and determination to continue his life on the mountain.
After winter's end, Sam finds himself carving out a nearby tree as a "guest house", reflecting after a bit that his work to such a purpose was something of a contradiction of the reason he'd decided to come to the wild in the first place.
At that point, he hears his father, and then his mother, at the foot of the mountain, discovering that his parents had decided to come as a family - with all of Sam's younger siblings - to the old homestead, away from the city.
As the book closes, the Gribley family begins building the house that will shelter them all in the years to come.
[edit] Film
In 1969, the book was turned into a film, My Side of the Mountain. It starred Ted Eccles as Sam and Theodore Bikel as Bando. The film made numerous departures from the book to heighten dramatic tension, and significantly revised the ending. For example, the location of Sam's tree is the (much more isolated) Laurentian Mountains near Knowlton, Ontario. This is an example of artistic license, as Knowlton is in Quebec.
The tenor of the film reflects the "Do your Own Thing" spirit and search for personal freedom aspect of popular culture at that time. Sam never makes contact with his family except through letters he asks Bando to mail home, but only from a distant posting location. One gets the impression that his family is devastated at his disappearance as evidenced by newspaper clippings shown to him describing his family's fruitless and desperate search for their lost son.
During his first and only winter, Sam is visited by Bando and the librarian on Christmas Day following a major blizzard in which he becomes completely snow-bound and nearly dies of suffocation from his indoor fireplace. Bando and the librarian rescue him just in time and together they celebrate a meal in the woods. Afterwards, Sam becomes resigned to the fact that he has proven his survival skills and is ready to return home that same day to his family.
