Hatchet book presentation

1. By Gary Paulsen
Book Presentation by:
Travis Arnold

2. Being 13 years old...
completely alone...
lost in the barren Canadian
wilderness...
with no hope of rescue.
All you have is a hatchet...
and the will to survive.

3. Brian Robeson is a 13-year-old boy who lives with his
mother in New York. His parents have recently been
divorced, and as the story begins Brian boards a single-engine
bush plane as the sole passenger headed for the northern
Canadian woodlands to visit his father.
Shortly into the flight, the pilot—the
only other person on board—suffers a
massive heart attack and dies. Brian
unsuccessfully tries to keep the small
plane airborne, and he proceeds to crash
land in a lake in the middle of the
Canadian wilderness…

4. Brian survives the crash, only to find himself
injured, alone, and desperate to find and secure food and
shelter. The only tool he has at his disposal is a hatchet
that his mother gave to him as a gift prior to his ill-fated
flight. Despite his dire situation, Brian is optimistic that
he will soon be rescued…

5. Early on, Brian struggles
to find the necessities to
survive. First he discovers
some berries, but they
make him violently ill.
Then he then finds a
raspberry bush, but
promptly retreats when he
encounters a bear. In his
first minor victory Brian
manages to build a
makeshift shelter, but in
the middle of the night a
porcupine enters and stabs
its quills into his leg,
injuring him further.

6. Brian manages to
overcome his initial
blunders, teaching himself
some basic survival skills.
He discovers various
helpful tricks, like how to
strike his hatchet against
rocks to make sparks and
build a fire, or how he
learns new ways to find
food like discovering some
turtle eggs to eat.

7. Brian now possesses the basic
skills he needs to survive in the
wilderness, but he still remains
hopeful for a speedy rescue.
One fateful day a plane flies
overhead and Brian tries
desperately to signal it, but he
fails and the plane flies away.
Brian becomes so depressed after
this experience that he gives up
on hope and tries to end his life
by cutting his wrists with his
hatchet.
Brian survives his suicide
attempt and emerges with a new
outlook on life. He has become
hardened to the point that he has
given up on the hope of a rescue,
but with his new mentality he’s
also found a powerful inner
strength and a firm resolve to
survive.

8. Brian takes his newfound resolve
in stride, perfecting his hunting,
fishing, and shelter-building skills.
He manages to catch his first fish,
as well as his first bird, which serve
as monumental moral victories for
him.
Brian still encounters many
setbacks that the Canadian
wilderness throws at him, including
being sprayed and nearly blinded
by a skunk, being attacked and
injured by a charging moose, and
even a tornado that blows away his
new shelter!

9. The next day, in the aftermath
of the tornado, Brian is shocked to
see that the storm stirred up the
lake enough to bring the tail of the
plane to the water’s surface. Brian
quickly devises a plan to swim out
to the plane in order to recover its
gear bag.
Upon doing so, Brian
successfully recovers the gear bag,
but in the process he drops his
hatchet to the bottom of the lake.
Enraged at himself for losing the
one comfort he’s had since day
one, he dives down and retrieves
his hatchet from the bottom of the
lake, only then realizing just how
much his trusty hatchet really
means to him.

10. What items will Brian discover in the plane’s mysterious
gear bag?
Will they help him in his ongoing quest for survival?
Could the gear bag offer an escape from the brutal
Canadian wilderness?
Will he ever be rescued??
Read Hatchet
to find out!

11.  Man vs. Wild
 Literally, as in Brian versus the elements
 Also figuratively, in how Brian loses touch with society
and becomes wild himself
 Optimism vs. Pessimism
 The crushing weight of despair and the power to
overcome that pain and find the strength to pick
yourself up and keep going
 The loss of innocence and coming into manhood
 Brian begins the story as an innocent boy leaving for an
adventure, and through his trials and hardships he
grows into a skilled woodsman and a strong survivor

12.  Gary Paulsen won the coveted Newbery Honor for
Hatchet in 1988
 Hatchet is the first novel in a five-book series
 Reviews:
 “Muscular prose, plus an accurate depiction of the
necessities of survival from an author who has lived the
details, makes this a riveting, intelligent read.” —
Common Sense Media
 “A heart-stopping story…poetic texture and realistic
events are combined to create something beyond
adventure.” —Publishers Weekly

13.  “He was not the same. The plane passing changed him, the
disappointment cut him down and made him new. He was
not the same and would never be again like he had been.
That was one of the true things, the new things. And the
other one was the he would not die, he would not let death
in again.”
 “Come on, he thought, baring his teeth in the darkness—
come on. Is that the best you can do—is that all you can hit
me with—a moose and a tornado? Well, he thought, holding
his ribs and smiling, then spitting mosquitoes out of his
mouth. Well, that won't get the job done. That was the
difference now. He had changed, and he was tough. I'm
tough where it counts—tough in the head.”

14.  Hatchet is an important YAL work and is still relevant to
the field of YAL almost two decades after being written
 As a winner of the coveted Newbery Honor in 1988,
Hatchet finds itself in the company of some of the greatest
and most influential YAL novels ever written
 Gary Paulsen’s themes in Hatchet concerning lost
innocence, entering into manhood, and positive thinking
triumphing over hopelessness are universal themes that
can be found in a great many YAL novels
 I can personally testify (having read Hatchet for the first
time when I was about 11 years old) that this YAL novel is
the kind that stays with you long after your young adult
years are far behind you

15. I look forward to hearing and answering any
and all questions or comments you may have
on this book and my presentation!
Thank you for reading!!

16.  All images taken from Google Images
 Paulsen, Gary. Hatchet. New York: Bradbury, 1987.
Print.