Brian Robeson is on the way to visit his father for the summer. The child of divorced parents, his mother gives him a small hatchet just before he boards a very small plane bound for northern Canada. When the pilot suffers a fatal heart attack Brian is forced to land in a lake in the middle of nowhere. Stranded in the Canadian wilderness with only his hatchet Brian must learn to find food and shelter and survive animal attacks. He must also deal with his feelings of his parent's divorce and the fact that he had caught his mother cheating with another man. Brian is eventually able to activate the plane's transmitter and is rescued. We read as Brian experiences mental changes, going from concrete to more operational when he must go from a child whose parents provide everything to an adult who must learn how to provide for himself. We see Brain go through emotional developments as he learns to cope and ultimately accept his parents' divorce and the circumstances that caused it. An adolescent teen character dealing with divorce would in and of itself make Hatchet a novel young teens could connect to. Enjoyed by readers for years, Hatchet would make an excellent class novel for grades 6 and up.
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