Book Club Guide

Hatchet

by Gary Paulsen · 1986 · Young Adult

Key themes

Survival and what it requires of the body and mind
The wilderness as teacher — what a 13-year-old discovers without any adults
The secret at the centre of the novel — and what carrying it costs

About this book

Brian Robison, a teenage boy struggling through his parents divorce, is flying up north to stay with his dad for the summer. However, his plane crashes and he is forced to survive the Canadian wildern

Published in 1987, Hatchet won the Newbery Honor and has sold over eight million copies. Paulsen drew on his own experience in the northern wilderness and his years of mushing sled dogs in the Iditarod.

Discussion questions

Brian's practical and psychological survival in the Canadian wilderness is the novel's entire subject. How does Paulsen generate sustained interest from one character alone in a forest?
Brian carries 'the secret' — knowledge of his mother's infidelity — throughout the novel. How does Paulsen use this — and does it add to the survival story or function separately from it?
The wilderness teaches Brian in ways that school and family cannot. What is Paulsen saying about the relationship between extreme adversity and self-knowledge?
The novel ends with Brian's rescue but also with a permanent change. What has he learned — and how does Paulsen show that this knowledge is both a gift and a burden?
Hatchet is one of the most assigned novels in American middle school classrooms. What does it offer young readers — and why does survival fiction specifically resonate at this age?