Hatchet

Paulsen, G. (1987). Hatchet. New York: Scholastic.

This captivating survival tales opens with thirteen year old Brian Robeson sitting in the co-pilot’s seat of a small plane headed north to Canada to spend some time with his father during the summer. Brian’s parents are divorced and he holds a lot of anger and built-up resentment towards his mother, blaming her for the cause of it. After sometime in the sky, and a brief stint flying the plane, Brian’s journey takes a turn for the worse. The pilot suffers a fatal heart-attack and dies while flying the plane, leaving Brian to try to keep it stable until the plane eventually runs out of gas. While trying to get help unsuccessfully through broken radio signals, Brian eventually realizes he will have to “land” the plane the best he can. He contemplates landing it in water, deeming it will be safer than the trees surrounding him and does his best to make a crash landing in a lake. After escaping from the waters from inside the sinking plane, he drags himself ashore. After sometime spent recovering, Brian makes things simple, assessing the situation and remembering back to an old English teacher who told him, “You are your most valuable asset. Don’t forget that. You are the best thing you have.”  He uses this as his mantra to get motivated and decides two things are most important: food and shelter. 

He explores a stone ridge, deciding that he can use this as a shelter with some modifications to keep it safer and protected. Realizing at this point that his hunger has gotten out of control, he decides he is going to find food, specifically look for some berry bushes. He discovers some berries, by following birds and immediately begins to gorge himself on the big, round red berries. But once falling asleep, he awakens sick from the berries, which he begins to refer to as “gut cherries”, admitting to himself that these must be eaten in moderation. However, he realizes that there must be more or varied berries so he sets out to explore once more. This time, he discovers some raspberries, but in the process crosses paths with a bear. He begins to realize how dangerous the wild is and how careful he must be. After an incident with a porcupine, Brian realizes that feeling sorry for yourself does nothing, which he coins as the most important rule of survival. In his mind, Brian wrestles with the fact that he is hopeful for someone to come and rescue him but he must be realistic about his situation and do everything he can in order to help himself survive. He realizes that he must make a fire and spends a great deal of time learning that sparks from a hatchet on a stone wall are a long way from fire. However with his new found determination, he does create fire and comes up with a specific plan to keep it going. He gives himself things to do each day from that day forward: pick berries, keep the fire going, catch fish, cut wood, makes arrows, hunting foolbirds. This gave him a sense of purpose and tough hope. 

Brian goes through a series of “firsts” throughout the course of his time in the woods: first meat, first arrow day, and first rabbit day. Brian keeps track of his time in the wilderness through these events, making a mental journal of all the things that have happened to him. He realizes that he has changed, at one point saying, “In measured time, forty-seven days have passed since the crash. Forty-two days, he thought, since he had died and become the new Brian.” After a devastating tornado rips through where Brian is, the plane tail emerges from the lake. Brian sets out in search of the survival kit he hopes has not been completely destroyed by the initial plane crash.

Will Brian find the emergency survival kit? Will anyone ever rescue Brian from the wilderness? Read Hatchet to find out the dramatic ending to this novel!

I really enjoyed reading this book: in fact I read it start to finish in one setting! Paulsen wrote this novel in such a captivating way you are left yearning for what is going to happen next! Just when you think there may be a glimmer of hope for young Brian, something else devastating happens! You, as the reader, are cheering and rooting for Brian throughout the whole novel! The story is told in third person limited omniscient narrator: we know everything Brian, the narrator, knows as we move through the story. There is the use of “he” but we only have insights into the mind of Brian and no other characters in the story. This is a realistic fiction novel, more specifically a survival story, because young Brian must rely on his will and ingenuity to survive this plane crash in the wilderness by himself with nothing but the clothes on his body and the hatchet given to him by his mother.

There is frequent use of foreshadowing in this novel. On the third page of this novel, we are introduced to this mysterious “secret” that Brian knows about and has clearly caused him a great deal of pain and torment. We learn later in Chapter 4 that Brian has seen his mother and a man together, but it is not until Chapter 6 that we learn his mother is the one who asked for the divorce. And Brian does not reveal until Chapter 7 that he saw his mother and the man kissing, a secret he has keep inside from everyone and it is slowly eating away at him. However, as time passes in the wilderness, Brian slowly becomes less angry at his parents, realizing that like self-pity, the anger does nothing for him. He comes to term with the divorce and the secret; disclosing at the end of the story, while he came close several times, he never did tell anyone about the secret. 

Also, in another example of foreshadowing, on page seven, Brian refers to the emergency pack and survival kit stored in the plane in case of crash landing. But it is not until after the tornado leaves the tail end of the plane exposed in Chapter 17 that he realizes that the survival pack must still be intact. This is interesting that he never thought of it sooner, and probably wouldn’t have if it weren’t for the tornado, because it is him braving the lake and plane to retrieve that survival pack that eventually saves his life. 

The main theme evoked throughout the course of this novel is survival. Brian is thrust into the most horrifying and devastating situations: trying to survive in the wilderness with only himself and a hatchet. Through trial and error and a lot of ingenuity, Brian must learn to depend on himself in order to meet his basic needs. He learns the hard way that self pity will do nothing for him and he has to take matters into his own hands. Figuring out that he himself is his best resource, he uses what he knows and has available to him to make shelter, hunt, gather food, and survive to the best of his ability in the wild. Personally, if I would have been in Brian’s shoes, I am pretty sure I would have died! It is amazing to look at the feats he overcame throughout this story and makes the reader think about what they might have done if they were in Brian’s shoes. 

As I read, I used the “mark my words” strategy and came up with a list of words that may be difficult for students as they read: p. 8 hatchet (not knowing exactly what this was, it was helpful to look up a quick picture); p. 16 altimeter; p. 27 wrenching; p. 31 abated; p. 70 wuffling; p. 83 tendril; p. 148 unduly; 

I thought it might be a neat idea while reading to ask students what one thing, besides a hatchet, they would have wanted to be stranded with. Also, how the item may have changed after reading the story. 

BIG Questions: How might the changes in Brian and qualities he gained throughout the novel help him later in life? How does Brian learn to deal with his fear in the wilderness?  What do you think may have happened to Brian if he had never been rescued? Why is Brian’s idea that self-pity does nothing for anyone true? Why do you think Paulsen chose to title the book Hatchet?