Review: "Hatchet" by Gary Paulsen

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
Published 1987
★★★★

I read Running Wild and got a yen to reread this. They're very different books, of course, and Hatchet is ultimately a nostalgia read for me. (How many kids of my generation read this in middle school?) It's the ultimate survival story: a boy unprepared for the wild crash-lands alone in remote Canada after the pilot flying their small plane has a heart attack. At first he thinks he'll just have to survive a few days, and then it becomes clear that he'll have to learn to be sufficient for rather longer.

I'm thinking now that Hatchet played at least a supporting role in my love of wilderness and survival stories. This is so unlike a contemporary survival story, even one written for the same age group (YA and MG lit were not the same established categories in 1987, when this was written, that they are now). I mean, just the fact that Brian has a hatchet on his trip to visit his father! He's not terribly resourceful to begin with, but he gets there—he has to grow up so quickly, because it's immediately obvious that just about anything in the wild can kill him.

Curious now about what the contemporary equivalent of this is; Running Wild is grand but also spans only a few days, and with kids who are better prepared to face the wild. And now I have a yen to reread Island of the Blue Dolphins as well...and maybe some more Gary Paulsen...