Book Review

 

College Composition

By Danielle Vine

 

Hatchet is a coming of age book through and through.  Brian’s parents have just divorced, and he is flying across the Canadian woods when the pilot of his little plane crashes and he is plunged into survival – basic, tooth and nail survival. 

The first time I heard the story was from my father.  With only one character throughout most of the book, he didn’t have much of a chance to use his giant store of character-voices.  But the narration is easy to listen to and smooth on the ears no matter who is reading it.

As a kid who loved the woods (but was unceremoniously moved to the big city of Bangor) hearing the beautiful yet terrifying descriptions of the wilderness was thoroughly enjoyed.  The author – Gary Paulsen – was an outdoorsman and he knew his stuff.

It was only when I was older that I realized that my father had pulled a “Princess Bride” on me.  I picked up the book again last year.  It had been a long time, and although the book was a “kid’s book,” it was too full of memories for me to let it sit there, unread by my own eyes.

While reading along, I found that my father had only read the good parts.  Or, more accurately, he had left out the bad parts.  In my childhood experience, I had not heard the raw form of this book.  I had not read of the messy reasons surrounding Brian’s parents’ divorce, nor did I hear of Brian’s climactic suicide attempt.

Now, is it a good book if 5^th graders are being so prematurely exposed to the world of divorce and suicide?  Maybe not.  But stories are what we make of them, and perhaps my father was on to something.  I wasn’t meant to hear the whole book until I was ready.  And when I was ready, then the bits of the story that were silently left out become all that much heavier.

In the end, this book is one that I will read to my children.  It’s very accurate in its description of the wilderness, and it breeds just the right measure of fear and awe of the world around us.