Hatchet

Paulsen, G. (1987). Hatchet. New York, NY. Bradbury Press.

Brief Annotation: This is an emotional, survival story about a 13 year old boy named Brian. Brian is in an airplane crash where he is left stranded and alone in the Northern woods of Canada. With no one but himself to solve his problems, Brian fends for himself by making shelter, fire, and catching food. Brian is also dealing with the emotional aspects of his parents’ divorce which he reflects on a lot during his adventure.

Genre: Adventure and Survival Story, Fiction

Grade Level: 4-6

Readers who will like this: Pre-teens or adolescents dealing with difficult situations, readers who enjoy the outdoors and tales of survival
Response/Rating (1-4): 4

One question you would ask before a read aloud: What would you do if you were stranded alone in the wilderness?

Reading Strategies Connection: A good instructional strategy that would be beneficial in this story is “Cubing” (Tompkins, p. 28). “Cubing" develops comprehension, writing, and content areas. Students explore a topic from six dimensions (just like a cube). “Cubing” enables students to use higher-level thinking and they share their higher-level thinking to the class. I think Hatchet would work well for “Cubing” because the students would be able to examine Brian’s character at a higher-level. The students will: Describe Brian (13 years old, brown hair, blue eyes, not too fat but not too skinny, American, only child), Compare Brian to something else (Brian is an average American boy who survives a plane crash, Brian is like a warrior because he learns how to fight and survive in the wilderness), Associate Brian to something (Brian is a lot like me, he is sad that his parents are divorced but he is learning how to deal with it), Analyze (Brian is a normal boy but he has to be brave and have a lot of courage when his plane crashes, he has to learn how to do that on his own, we would have to do that too if we were in a plane crash), Apply (when we read about Brian, we learned a lot about being brave and how to survive and never lose hope), and Argue (Brian is the bravest person we know because he was able to survive for many days in the wilderness and in the dark of night he still didn’t get scared).