About this title: Thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson was devastated when his parents divorced and his father took a job working in the far off oil fields of Canada. Traveling to visit his dad for the first time since the divorce, Brian survives a plane crash that kills the airplane's pilot--the only other person aboard the small aircraft. Stranded in the wilderness, Brian must rely only on his wits, and the hatchet given to him by his mother, as he struggles to survive. In the process, he also begins to come to terms with his parents' divorce. HATCHET is the book that first introduced readers to Brian Robeson, a ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Scholastic
Date Published: 1999
ISBN-13:9780590981828ISBN:059098182X
Description: Good. Text in good condition. Cover has a few impression marks. Cover is worn around the edges. Several slight creases on front cover. Names on inside of front cover along with some other scribbling. No other writting in book. read more
Description: Fair. No dust jacket as issued. Ex-library. Has some wear, tape on spine, library stickers on spine, back cover and first couple of pages. Bottom corner of front cover bent. All pages intact and tight. read more
"yes yes yes!! thank you to all the goodreaders who recommended this to me after my love for island of the blue dolphins became known. it turns out i love survival stories!! with teens!! and i wish i could say i never tore my eyes from the page and read this in an hour, but i have been having a distractedish day today; emailing my dad for fathers day (everyone: call your dads!! or if they are at work, email-chat them!) and then there was a fire across the street from me (which is my number one all time fear) and the people in the building are so casual about it - there are two fire trucks in the street, and firefighters swarming everywhere, and i look in the windows and in two different apartments, there are people just sitting and watching and smoking cigarettes. what is wrong with them?? dont they care that their building is on fire?? dont they feel the fear i feel?? did they light their cigarettes from their blazing belongings and treasures?? i dont understand their stoicism in the face of fire. but you know who loves fire?? brian. he uses it to survive in the wilderness. seamless segue back into the review. its great. i could read 400 more pages of this story. and despite my own fears of the fire leaping across the street to consume me and my beloved books, i could still engage in his plight: when he d the h in the w (clever code prevents spoilers) - i actually gasped out loud. and there were several times when he overcame a particular setback that i smiled. i totally cared about this character. i would love more survivaly stories, if anyones got 'em."
"The Story sets off in a single engine plane, Brian Robenson the main character sitting in the cockpit beside a pilot that he does not know the name to. Brian is hurting down ddep inside when the story flashbacks to a memory when he saw his mother with another guy at the mall, there is more to the story but that is all Brian's recollection to the flashback at that moment. A few weeks later his mother demands for a divorce. Soon he is forced to leave on plane to see his father in Cananada. Right before he boards his plane, his mother, gives him a gift. A hatchet which foreshadows the events to come. He does not know it at the time but that hatchet would count on his survival. Then suddenly the pilot has a heart attack and dies. Brian then takes control of the plane with the few short lessons he had before the Pilot died, and his failed emmergency contact, he crashes the plane in a lake. There is a sudden feeling that Brian has when he crashes that will determine if he lives or dies. He feels reborn. He feels alive."
"Pretty decent story, though I think a little more exposition of the internal growth of the boy to the man would have been nice. Change seemed nearly as abrupt as Anakin to Vader in Star Wars (not a compliment)."
"For the last few months, I have been going into my son's classroom and reading with a small group for an hour. This is exactly my kind of volunteering. We each take turns reading aloud and when the hour is up, we mark our place for the next week.
Our group, which contained five boys and myself, read The Hatchet, a book about 13 year-old Brian Robeson, who survives in the Canadian wilderness for months after the airplane he was traveling in to visit his father crashes - in large part because he has in his possession a hatchet given to him by his mother.
I was very impressed with those 8 and 9 year-old attention spans because, after the initial crash, which is quite exciting, the book moves at a snails pace. There are lots and lots of details about Brian building a shelter and the process in which he finds food (from berries, eggs, fish to finally game meat) and Brian's own inner dialogue about what his fate will be. I particularly enjoyed the fact that the author, Gary Paulsen, uses a technique of repeating emphasis words regularly throughout paragraphs that the boys were able to pick up as a unique to that author writing style. It was so fun to discuss those kinds of things with these bright boys. Paulsen also included plenty of vomiting, diarrhea, animal attacks and other bits of danger to completely hook his young readers.
I admit to being a tad worried about the theme of divorce and The Secret (which turned out to be that Brian saw his mother kissing another man in a car), but was relieved to discover that it wasn't the emphasis of the book and even my sheltered and innocent son seemed able to handle these mature ideas.
I'm not as sure girls of the same age would like it, but The Hatchet was a hit with my 8 year old. Plus, mom liked it too."
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