Though it received a Newbery Honor in 1988, and already had a sequel ( The River), the book’s fans prevailed on its author to provide an alternate ending.

Just when it looked like an interesting new chapter might be opening for Brian, the story ends in a way that, evidently, many of the book’s original fans didn’t like. The outcome is so surprising that it may seem abrupt. He becomes attuned to the sounds, smells, and visual details around him: a human survival machine.Īnd then the tornado sweeps through his camp and gives him one, final opportunity to choose between life and death. He makes mistakes that nearly cost him his life. He learns to make fire, shelter, and weapons so that he can hunt and fish. He survives encounters with bears, a porcupine, a skunk, a wolf, and (most terrifying of all) a moose. Aided by nothing but a hatchet and the will to survive, even after he knows the search for him has been called off, he holds off starvation. This is the story of Brian’s fifty-four-day ordeal. With nothing but the clothes on his back and a hatchet his mother had given him as a parting gift, he has to scratch a living out of the Canadian wilderness. Brian finds himself alone at 70,000 feet, with no idea where he is and no one on the radio to help him land the plane.Ĭonsidering that he lives through the crash, I suppose he does all right. He doesn’t find out what tough is until the pilot of a single-engine Cessna dies of a heart attack right beside him. He thinks it’s tough having to fly from New York to northern Canada to visit his father over the summer. Purchase hereīrian Robeson, aged 13, thinks it’s tough having divorced parents.

Gary paulsen hatchet series