MoreThanItsCover

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Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
Puffin, 1988
 Reviewer recommended age 12 and up.
Summary

Brian is a 13-year-old boy of divorced parents on his way to spend the summer with his dad in Alaska.  He is the only passenger in a small plane when the pilot has a heart attack and they crash into the forest.  With no one to help him, Brian must figure out how to survive.

Language
  • Potentially offensive language includes "Oh God".

Sexual Situations

  • Brian sees his mother kissing another man while his parents are still married.

Violence

  • The pilot dies from a prolonged and painful heart attack.
  • The airplane crashes into a lake and Brian must fight the water to swim out, ripping his fingernails in the process.
  • Biting insects swarm around the boy each morning and evening and cause his exposed skin to swell.
  • Brian receives a blistering sunburn.
  • Brian gets violently ill from eating berries.
  • Brian is painfully impaled with porcupine quills.
  • Brian is temporarily blinded by corrosive skunk spray.
  • Brian is viciously attacked and almost killed by a moose.
  • Brian's shelter and the surrounding area are destroyed in a tornado which almost kills him.
  • Brian faces the pilot's decomposing body when he dives to search the plane for a survival kit.

Drugs/Alcohol

  • none

Race Issues

  • none

Religion

  • Brian feels he must pray over the dead pilot but "doesn't know the religious words" to use.

Politics

  • none

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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