Hatchet is a 1987 three-time Newbery Honor-winning wilderness survival novel written by Gary Paulsen. It is the first novel in the Hatchet series and is followed by four sequels. Brian Robeson is a 13 year-old who travels on a Cessna 206 bush plane to visit his father in the oil fields in northern Canada for the summer because his parents are divorced. During the flight, the pilot suffers a heart attack, causing Brian to try to land the plane, but ends up crash-landing into an L-shaped lake in the forest, saving nothing but his hatchet. Throughout the summer, Brian attempts to survive in the... endless wilderness with only his hatchet, which was a gift his mother gave him shortly before his plane departed. He figures out how to make fire with the hatchet and makes himself eat whatever food he can find, such as snapping turtle eggs, fish, berries, fruit, rabbits, and birds. He deals with some animals like a porcupine, bear, skunk, moose, wolves and eventually becomes a good craftsman, crafting a bow, arrows, and a fishing spear. He also fashions a shelter out of the underside of a rock overhang.
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| Author: | Gary Paulsen |
| Genre: | Young adult literature, Fiction, Children's literature |
| Year published: | 1987 |
| Number of editions: | 34 |