The Hatchet is a Book about a boy named Brian who goes in a plane to see his father while his parents are being divorced and on the plane ride the pilot has a heart attack and passes out. The plane crashes and Brian has to survive in the woods with only his Hatchet.
Brian and the pilot.
Brian Robeson is a kid with a problem. Well, no—he starts out as a kid with a problem, but he quickly becomes a kid with a PROBLEM. If he thinks he's having a rough time coping with his parents' divorce, wait until he sees what's coming down the pike.
Just an Ordinary BoyOne of the most noticeable things about our main character is that he's, well, um—just not that noticeable. There's nothing about him, personally, that really makes him stand out from the crowd. Not that he isn't a nice kid—it's just that some books give you a main character who's unlike anyone you've known before, and Brian is just not that kind of protagonist.
He's not, for instance, a desperately poor but pure-hearted boy who wins out in the end because of his greatness of heart and sweetness of spirit. He's not a depressed, phony-obsessed, sorta-crazy teenager on the run from authority. He's not a Character with a capital C.
Instead, Brian is a boy-next-door type, kind of an everyday kid. He's the quiet (but not too quiet) boy who sits next to you in Social Studies. He may not be the captain of the football team, but he's not the last one picked in gym class, either. He's just an ordinary kid, who suddenly finds himself in an extraordinary situation. Hatchet, ultimately, is more about what happens to Brian than about Brian himself, so that fact that he's not that unusual helps readers imagine themselves right there with him in the wilderness.
Smart as a HatchetOkay, so Brian may be just an average kid, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't have his strong points. By the time you get just a little ways into reading Hatchet, you have to notice that Brian, despite his uncertainty about himself and his place in the world, is a pretty smart kid.
Look at what he does when he has a problem—whether it's how to catch a fish, how to keep warm, or how to build a raft. He looks at what he's got, and at where he wants to get, and then he cobbles together something that might have a chance to work for him (if he's lucky). He's determined, and when something doesn't work, he tries something else. He's got a practical, hands-on kind of smarts.
It's not so much that Brian is book smart—we're not saying that he's necessarily the number one pick for your Math Olympiad team—but he knows how to figure things out. And that's absolutely the best kind of smart there is for someone in his situation.
Just an Ordinary BoyOne of the most noticeable things about our main character is that he's, well, um—just not that noticeable. There's nothing about him, personally, that really makes him stand out from the crowd. Not that he isn't a nice kid—it's just that some books give you a main character who's unlike anyone you've known before, and Brian is just not that kind of protagonist.
He's not, for instance, a desperately poor but pure-hearted boy who wins out in the end because of his greatness of heart and sweetness of spirit. He's not a depressed, phony-obsessed, sorta-crazy teenager on the run from authority. He's not a Character with a capital C.
Instead, Brian is a boy-next-door type, kind of an everyday kid. He's the quiet (but not too quiet) boy who sits next to you in Social Studies. He may not be the captain of the football team, but he's not the last one picked in gym class, either. He's just an ordinary kid, who suddenly finds himself in an extraordinary situation. Hatchet, ultimately, is more about what happens to Brian than about Brian himself, so that fact that he's not that unusual helps readers imagine themselves right there with him in the wilderness.
Smart as a HatchetOkay, so Brian may be just an average kid, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't have his strong points. By the time you get just a little ways into reading Hatchet, you have to notice that Brian, despite his uncertainty about himself and his place in the world, is a pretty smart kid.
Look at what he does when he has a problem—whether it's how to catch a fish, how to keep warm, or how to build a raft. He looks at what he's got, and at where he wants to get, and then he cobbles together something that might have a chance to work for him (if he's lucky). He's determined, and when something doesn't work, he tries something else. He's got a practical, hands-on kind of smarts.
It's not so much that Brian is book smart—we're not saying that he's necessarily the number one pick for your Math Olympiad team—but he knows how to figure things out. And that's absolutely the best kind of smart there is for someone in his situation.