Gary Paulsen and Gloria Levine - Hatchet: Teacher Guide Grades 7-8

Pros: gritty survival story, great details
Cons: too graphic for some, oddly anti-climatic ending

When I was a kid, I loved survival stories, books where kids lived in the wild due to some hardship or self-imposed quest and lived off mushrooms and roots. It was pure fantasy, of course. I was the kind of child who hated not having flush toilets and...

Pros: Suspense, Plot, Setting, Characters
Cons: Dry in some areas, Insufficient ending

After getting load full of gift certificates for Christmas, it was about of time I go out and spend some free dough. So I went to my local Barnes and Noble without any particular book in mind, and in the Teenage section I stumbled across the book ...

Pros: Interesting survival story that appeals to boys (and girls)
Cons: Silly and unnecessary little subplot

I've had Hatchet by Gary Paulsen on my "books to be read" bookshelf for the past couple of years. I don't know why I never read it, except that every time I was about ready to, I'd have a new order of books come in and I'd start in on those ones....

Pros: Diction, Details, Style, Realism.
Cons: None.

In my opinion, simple plot...simple summary, so here it is: A 13-year-old city boy survives a plane crash in the Canadian wilderness after the pilot, the only other person in the small plane, has a heart attack and dies. The boy ends up learning ...

Pros: exciting survival story
Cons: Preaching breaks up the suspense.

Brian is in a small airplane being taken to see his father, and he is in considerable pain due to his parents' recent divorce, when the pilot (who has shown him a few things about flying the plane) begins to complain of pain in his left shoulder. Can...

Pros: An exciting, suspenseful adventure for children
Cons: May bring up some troubling issues

"And you must cut down that tree with...a herring!" (sorry, I couldn't resist getting a Monty Python quote in, and I probably didn't even quote it correctly). Even though that isn't the most applicable to this book, the absolute hopelessness of that...

Pros: just a great story
Cons: some descriptions may be overstated

"Hatchet", by Gary Paulson, is probably one of the greatest books I have read for adolescents. I am an upper elementary school teacher, who loves to read as a personal hobby. I am constantly searching for books to share with my students and...

Pros: Teaches you to think and to use what's available to you.
Cons: Rambling, slow start to each chapter, but the end is better.

Question: What do you get when you cross Brian Robenson and a hatchet? Answer: You get a brave kid in an awesome action-packed adventurous book. Brian, a not-so-fit kid, rides on a plane to see his dad in Northern Canada. When the ...

Pros: One of the most compelling stories I have ever read
Cons: a bit on the short side(of course......it is a middle school book)

I read this book for the first time when I was in middle school about 13 years ago. I am now 26 years old and recently had the chance to read it again. I found that the book was just as incredible and hard to put down as it was before. The book is ...

Pros: Great plot
Cons: Silly adventures

The story is about a boy who gets lost in the Canadian wilderness. He is the lone survivor and makes it through fifty-four days in the wilderness with his brains, common sense, and a hatchet. The hatchet is his link to the world he left behind and the...

Pros: adventurous, good moral
Cons: can be a little scary for younger readers

This is an on the edge of your seat book. I love Gary Paulsen and this book did not let me down. The survival of the main character is so real. It focuses on the character Brian Robeson and how he survives in the Canadian wilderness after a plane...

Pros: Great story about surviving in the wilderness.
Cons: None

Brian Robeson is a thirteen year old boy whose parents are getting a divorce. He lives with his mother in the city and his father has visitation rights. He gets on a bush-plane with the only other passenger being the pilot to go visit his father....

Pros: Excellent plot, more self confidence
Cons: None

Everything that this boy goes through is so plausible, and so life changing for him. The book goes through a young boys crash by plane in a lake in the middle of nowhere...and through his self-actualization as a man. He realizes he can do things he...

Pros: Best survival book, scary parts, and exciting.
Cons: Nothing.

I love reading survival stories. I got this book from the library because I had heard so much good things about it. A thirteen year old boy who lives most of the time with his divorced mom, who cheated on his dad, is going to visit his dad in Canada. ...

Pros: great plot and setting
Cons: sometimes there is un-needed preaching

Hatchet is a great book to read especially for someone in middle school. It involves a boy named Brian whose parents get divorced because of the “Secret.” He is going to visit his father in the summer and he takes and airplane to get there. Nobody else ...