Hatchet is a book about a pre-teen named Brian Robeson.
Brian is a boy with parents that are getting divorced. He and
his mother reach a consensus that allows him to visit his father
in Canada. He is directed to fly in an airplane. He and the pilot
are flying, when the pilot begins to have gas and chest pains.
Brian is beginning to think of the smell unbearable, when
suddenly the pilot starts screaming. He jerks back and fourth
in his seat. Then he lays back and his eyes roll to the back of
his head. Brian realizes the pilot has had a heart attack. Now,
Brian is left with the decision to either let the plane run out of
fuel, or bring it to the ground at that time. After considering all
of the possibilities, he decided to let the plane run out of fuel.
Brian continues to fly in that direction. When the plane finally
runs out of fuel, he struggles to bring it down into a lake. When
he succeeds in getting it into the body of water, he swims to the
surface, gulping for air. He finds that he is in the Canadian
wilderness. He has no clue where he is, and he knows the pilots
foot had bumped the right pedal. He is way off course. How is
anyone going to find him? First, he decided to rest. After a day,
he finds a little "igloo" type of structure. He concludes that the
igloo shall be his shelter. Then, he needed to find food. He was
thinking about all the movies he had seen, where people had to
survive in the wilderness. He remembered that alot of those
people had found berries. He is searching through a hedge, when
he sees brightly colored birds. Since most of his surroundings are
green, they stick out. It is in this way that he found the berries. He
was looking in the hedge for some, then he saw something bright
red. These were the berries. He swallowed bunches of them,
savoring each ones taste. Afterwards, he went to his shelter
and went to sleep that night with a full belly. The next morning,
he woke up and got out of the shelter. He went to see his
reflection in the lake. He realized he looked very ugly at that
moment. He was covered with bug bites, cuts, scabs, and his
head was still somewhat swollen. At that moment, he became
filled with self-pity, he was starving, ugly, dirty, and lost. He did
not know what he was going to do. He relaxed on the bank of the
lake and fought against the coming tears. He made his way weakly
to the shelter, and ate a small amount of berries. He thought that they
still tasted disgusting, as before, so he thought he would try to find some
more. Then he could find his way back to his home. He then realized, he
had been lost for three days. With luck, he found some raspberries.
He ate some then turned around. Looming behind him was a black
colored bear. Brian froze, the bear got bored, and he went on his way.
Brian then learns how to make fire, eat what he can find, etc. Then a
tornado came. It threw the plane up to the surface. He makes a raft
to get to the plane. He worked his way into the plane, after dropping
his hatchet of course. After several dives to retreive it, he gets back
into the plane. He tries to turn on the radio to message for help, and
he doesn't realize it works. A fur trader came in on a water plane and
saved Brian. He can finally go to see his father! Hooray!
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