Hatchet: Stories that Stick

I’ve always been drawn to survival stories. People thrown into unexpected circumstances and finding ways to survive makes for a good story, for obvious reasons. More so, I like the idea that no matter how bleak a situation seems, there is always something you can do to help yourself.

I think it’s especially valuable for children to read stories like this. To read about people, especially other children, going through the process of figuring out what they need, what they have, and how to get what they need from what they have. Which problem needs to be solved first? Which can wait? The message of finding agency even when you feel helpless.

The tricky thing is formulating these stories in a way that is both appealing and digestible for children. I’m always impressed when authors manage to write about heavy topics for kids in a way that doesn’t shy away from reality, but also doesn’t deter the kids from wanting to read it. It would be so easy to tip over into either making it too glib, or too traumatizing.

Hatchet is a middle grade story by Gary Paulsen (spelling?) that pulls this balancing act off masterfully. Brian, who is thirteen, is flying to visit his father. He’s in a private plane, just him and the pilot, when the pilot has a heart attack. Brian has to figure out how to land the plane on a lake and escape before the plane sinks. He succeeds only to find himself stranded in the wilderness with no way to call for help. All he has, aside from the clothes on his back, is the hatchet his mother gifted him right before he left.

I can’t remember exactly how old I was when I first read Hatchet, but I remember devouring this book as a kid. I admired Brian and wanted to be as resilient as he was. The story takes him through denial (someone will be along to rescue me, I just need to wait it out), the first steps of meeting his most basic needs of shelter and food, to realizing he’s in it for the long haul.

Brian needs to figure out how to make and maintain a fire. He can’t just survive on berries so he needs to figure out how to fish, and eventually hunt, with tools he makes himself. He’s swarmed by mosquitoes, encounters dangerous wildlife, gets hurt, and has setbacks that bring him to the brink of giving up. Things go wrong at every turn and he has to pick himself up and keep going. I can’t think of a better lesson for a kid to learn. And thanks to fiction like this, they can learn it without crashing a plane in the wilderness.