Hatchet by Gary Paulsen

Something interesting happened when I read this book. One day, exasperated with how much I disliked it, I asked a room full of kids if they had read it. About 8 hands went up. When I asked what everyone thought about it, all of the girls told me it was boring and they hated it but all of the boys told me that it was so good that I needed to read the rest of the Brian books then they bombarded me with "Have you gotten to the part where..."

I didn't like this book. Plain and simple. It was well written and a pretty quick read but it isn't my style. It is a book for boys and I'll just leave it at that. I did finish it by flashlight while my boyfriend fished, though, and that seems pretty appropriate.

Brian is on his way to the forests of Canada to visit his father who is working there. Brian's parents are recently divorced and he is carrying a secret. The secret is that his mother had an affair and he saw her with another man. While Brian is in the small plane, that is what he is thinking about. Then, his pilot has a heart attack and dies and everything changes.

This is a downright courageous tale of freedom but sometimes it lost me. Brian just had too much information stored in his brain and too many things felt unbelievable to me. Boys will love it, though.