Hatchet Review Part 1

Simply amazing. It could be because I grew up loving the outdoors, loving stories about adventures in the wilderness, because of the book's writing, or any combination but regardless I love this book. It was a riveting, intense, and incredibly fast read. Brian Robeson is a 13 year old boy flying in a single-engine Cessna to visit his father for the summer. While en route from New York to the oil fields in northern Canada, disaster strikes and Brian ends up crash landing in a wilderness lake, surviving storms, living off the land, and facing multiple tragedies. I could write for ages about this book. Gary Paulsen takes the reader on a vivid and emotional journey which I enjoyed every last bit of it. Well nearly every last bit.

In the very beginning of the story, the pilot lets Brian take over flying and Paulsen does an amazing job at describing what that actually feels like. While I was reading it, I felt like I was young again and flying in my dad's Cessna for the first time. It's hard to describe how thrilling and terrifying it is to take over the controls but Paulsen does a wonderful job. "Brian reached out and took the wheel in a grip so tight his knuckles were white. He pushed his feet down on the pedals. The plane slewed suddenly to the right. 'Not so hard. Take her light, take her light.'" I can remember my shaky hands grabbing the wheel and how the tiniest of movements were so drastic! "The burning in his eyes was forgotten momentarily as the vibration of the plane came through the wheel and the pedals. It seemed almost alive." There's something so amazing about being in the air and having complete control over the aircraft. Brian's experience was so enjoyable to me as it reminded me of flying with my Dad.

If I thought the flying experience was written well, I was amazed even further when the pilot had a heart attack. It was so real, so lifelike, I could see the pilot seizing in front of me and I almost couldn't read it. "And now a jolt took him like a hammer-blow, so forcefully that he seemed to crush back into the seat...The pilot's mouth went rigid, he swore and jerked a short series of slams into the seat, holding his shoulder now. Swore and hissed...one more awful time he slammed back into the seat and his right leg jerked, pulling the plane to the side in a sudden twist and his head fell forward and spit came. Spit came from the corners of his mouth and his legs contracted up, up into the seat, and his eyes rolled back in his head until there was only white. Only white for his eyes and the smell became worse, filled the cockpit, and all of it so fast, so incredibly fast that Brian's mind could not take it in at first. Could only see it in stages. The pilot had been talking, just a moment ago, complaining of the pain. He had been talking." Wow. And we're on page ELEVEN. I don't know how Paulsen described something so vividly...maybe he himself saw someone have a heart attack? Regardless, it was too realistic.

Fast forward a few pages and the plane's about to crash. Honestly while reading about the plane getting closer and closer to crashing, I was predicting what would happen, and since we had already learned about the planes emergency bag I assumed that Brian would be fine. Nope! Surprise! He crash lands and the plane sinks...buh-bye handy emergency kit with food and rope and flares and anything else that would come in handy after crash landing. And again, throughout all of this Paulsen brings the story to life. The range of words: viciously thirsty, foul, scrunched, ruefully, lumpy are perfectly used throughout the story. This book is one of those rare books, at least for me, where I can see a movie playing in my mind while I'm reading. I love it!

"And he was, at that moment, almost overcome with self-pity. He was dirty and starving and bitten and hurt and lonely and ugly and afraid and so completely miserable that it was like being in a pit, a dark, deep pit with no way out. He sat back on the bank and fought crying. Then let if come and cried for perhaps three, four minutes. Long tears, self-pity tears, wasted tears."

"So fast, he thought. So fast things change. When he'd gone to sleep he had satisfaction and in just a moment it was all different. He grasped one of the quills, held his breath, and jerked. It sent pain signals to his brain in tight waves, but he grabbed another, pulled it, then another quill...The pain filled his leg now, and with it came new waves of self-pity. Sitting alone in the dark, his leg aching, some mosquitos finding him again, he started crying. It was all too much, just too much, and he couldn't take it. Not the way it was."

So much of this book is heart wrenching, and, although it is full of failures that Brian experiences, he also succeeds and slowly learns to become at home in the wilderness. Living off of fish, berries, and dealing with a wide assortment of wild animals, this story is anything but a romanticized crash-landing story.

There are a plethora of extension activities that can be based around Hatchet. The vocabulary throughout the book is rich and students could write down new words that they come across in each chapter. Then you could create an extensive class vocabulary list for the book. Furor, oblivious, audible, ruefully, haunches, grimacing, etc. There are obviously questions you could create around what if students were in Brian's situation, but I would love to ask them questions such as the following. How might the pilot's treatment of Brian as an adult have helped save Brian's life? (The pilot let Brian control the airplane which gave him some confidence and experience in flying) What makes the first chapter so dramatic? Why are some phrases repeated? There are also plenty of fun graphic organizers to help students read effectively, improve their comprehension, etc. Hatchet Graphic Organizers