Hatchet Plot Summary

Hatchet Overview

In the tradition of Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson, Hatchet is a story of individual survival against great odds. It tells how a routine journey turned into a life-threatening and life-changing experience. The central character, thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson (whose name echoes his literary ancestry), is stranded alone at a lake deep in the Canadian wilderness for fifty-four days. A small plane, carrying Brian from his mother's home in Hampton, New York, to the oil fields in Canada where his father works, crashes after the pilot dies in flight from a heart attack.

From the moment that Brian begins piloting the Cessna 406 and guides it to a lucky crash-landing in the water, the odds against him are immense. Before he died the pilot fortuitously let Brian experience the controls and taught him enough to keep the plane from a fatal spin or stall. Brian is a city...
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