50 Fun Facts About Hatchet

In Hatchet, what kills the pilot of the bush plane flying Brian Robeson north to his father?

A heart attack strikes mid-flight, after the pilot has been rubbing his shoulder and complaining of aches. Brian, thirteen and alone in the cockpit, has no idea how to land.

In Hatchet, Brian Robeson discovers sparks after hurling his hatchet at which night-time intruder?

A porcupine slithers into the shelter in the dark and leaves eight quills in Brian's leg. The hatchet misses, hits the wall in a shower of sparks, and gives him the idea for fire.

In Hatchet, which survival-pack item that Brian tosses aside as useless ends up bringing rescue?

The emergency transmitter seems dead when Brian flips its switch, so he sets it down and starts cooking dinner. It has been signalling all along, and a passing pilot follows it to the lake.

In Hatchet, which disaster wrecks Brian's camp but lifts the tail of the sunken plane into view?

A tornado tears through the camp at night, scattering Brian's tools and putting out his fire. By morning it has also flipped the wreck, and the tail gives him a way to reach the supplies inside.

In Hatchet, what is 'the Secret' about his mother that haunts Brian throughout the flight north?

An affair is the Secret: Brian saw his mother kissing a stranger in a station wagon at the mall while he was out riding bikes. He believes it is the real cause of his parents' divorce.

In Hatchet, which animal charges Brian at the lake, throws him in the water and injures his ribs?

A moose slams into Brian without warning as he washes his hands after a hunt, then hits him again when he tries to crawl out. He escapes by inching to shore while she calmly chews a plant.

In Hatchet, what does Brian do right after telling the pilot who rescues him his name?

Brian offers him food: "Would you like something to eat?" is all he says, with dinner cooking on the fire. After 54 days alone, he greets the stranger the way a host greets a guest.

In Hatchet, which night visitor digs up Brian's buried food and leaves him blind for two hours?

A skunk sprays Brian full in the face after he throws sand at it, and his eyes hurt for weeks. It eats his whole store anyway, which teaches him to guard whatever he gathers.

In Hatchet, where is Brian carrying his mother's parting gift, so it survives the crash with him?

On his belt is where Brian loops the hatchet, at his mother's urging, on the drive to the airport. After the crash it is still hanging there, the only real tool he owns.

In Hatchet, where must Brian Robeson aim to hit a fish, once he realizes that water bends light?

Just below it, because refraction makes a fish appear where it is not. After days of misses, Brian catches so many that first day that he eats until he is full.

In Hatchet, the lake where Brian brings the plane down is shaped like which letter of the alphabet?

L is the shape Brian spots from the air as the engine dies. He aims for the water on purpose, reasoning that coming down in the trees would destroy the plane and kill him.

In Hatchet, Brian's father is a mechanical engineer working where in the far north of Canada?

The oil fields are where Brian is headed for his first summer since the divorce. The plane is also carrying drilling equipment for the job, plus the survival pack that matters later.

In Hatchet, why does the plane finally go down after Brian Robeson has kept it flying for hours?

It runs out of fuel: Brian cannot bring himself to attempt a landing, so he flies on, calling on the radio every ten minutes. By the time the engine quits he has rehearsed aiming for a lake.

In Hatchet, what does the pilot let Brian try from the copilot's seat shortly before falling ill?

Steer the plane: the pilot shows Brian the control wheel and rudder pedals and says a plane like this almost flies itself. Minutes later that short lesson is all Brian has to go on.

In Hatchet, which animal does Brian find sharing his berry patch, less than twenty feet away?

A black bear rises on its hind legs to study Brian, then drops down, eats and wanders off. He bolts, then reasons that it would have hurt him already if it meant to, and goes back to picking.

In Hatchet, which berries does Brian find in a clearing after the 'gut cherries' make him sick?

Raspberries fill a clearing a little farther along the shore, and they become Brian's first dependable food. He picks until rain drives him back to the shelter around noon.

After his rescue in Hatchet, Brian learns the 'gut cherries' that made him ill were which fruit?

Chokecherries are the red fruit with large pits that Brian gorged on soon after the crash. Back at camp he learned to eat only a few ripe ones at a time.

In Hatchet, what does Brian dig out of a sand pile after following strange tracks up from the lake?

Turtle eggs, seventeen of them, are buried where the tracks stop. With no pot to cook them in, Brian sucks six down raw and decides to ration the rest at one a day.

In Hatchet, which tinder at last takes Brian's sparks after grass and a twenty-dollar bill fail?

Birch bark works once Brian spends two hours shredding it into a fine fluff and learns to blow on the sparks gently. Too hard a breath had put his earlier attempts out.

In Hatchet, where does Brian make his lakeside shelter, weaving a wall of sticks across the opening?

Under a rock overhang, in a hollow scooped from the ridge, Brian finds a spot stronger and drier than any lean-to he could build. He leaves a doorway about three feet wide.

In Hatchet, which pests swarm Brian at dawn after the crash, forming 'a living coat' on his skin?

Mosquitoes pour into Brian's nose and mouth until the sun is fully up, then vanish. Later he finds that smoke from a fire keeps them away, one more reason to keep it burning.

In Hatchet, which figure of speech calls Brian's misery 'like being in a pit, a dark, deep pit'?

A simile compares two things using 'like' or 'as'. This one comes when Brian catches his reflection in the lake: dirty, swollen with bites and far from the boy who boarded the plane.

In Hatchet, which literary device has Brian think 'I have a friend named fire' at his first blaze?

Personification gives human qualities to something that is not human. Brian calls the fire a hungry friend he must feed, a sign of how lonely a few days without company have made him.

In Hatchet, which figure of speech has Brian's 'stomach tightened into a series of rolling knots'?

A metaphor describes one thing as if it were another, with no 'like' or 'as'. Paulsen uses this one as the plane glides down and all Brian can see through the windshield is trees.

In Hatchet, a mother's gift of a hatchet just before the doomed flight is which literary device?

Foreshadowing plants a hint of what is coming. A hatchet meant for a summer in the woods becomes the one tool standing between Brian and starvation, and it gives the book its title.

In Hatchet, Gary Paulsen writes that the hatchet cuts the sunken plane's skin as if it were what?

Soft cheese is the comparison, and the ease of it matters: seconds later Brian fumbles the hatchet into the lake and has to dive to the bottom to get his only tool back.

In Hatchet, Brian learns to spot hidden foolbirds by their shape, which he compares to which fruit?

A pear, pointed at one end and fat at the other: 'a flying pear', Brian thinks. Looking for that outline instead of feathers or color is what lets him see the birds before they burst away.

Which type of conflict drives Hatchet, a survival story in which Brian has no human enemy at all?

Person versus nature is the frame: the forest, the weather and hunger are all Brian has to beat. The animals are not villains either, and he comes to see himself as one more creature among them.

In Hatchet, which English teacher's advice to stay positive does Brian recall after the crash?

Perpich was always telling his class to think positive and stay on top of things. Remembering him, Brian empties his pockets and takes stock of everything he owns, himself included.

In Hatchet, which friend is cycling with Brian when he sees the Secret and later appears in a dream?

Terry is the friend Brian once played at being lost in the woods with. In the dream he lights a barbecue and points at the flames, a clue Brian only understands the next morning.

In Hatchet, the 'foolbirds' Brian hunts with a spear and arrows turn out to be which real species?

Ruffed grouse is the proper name Brian looks up once he is home. In the woods they hid so well that one could sit two feet away unseen, then explode into flight.

In Hatchet, which survival-pack item makes Brian feel strangely removed from the woods around him?

A rifle is the find that unsettles him: holding it, Brian feels cut off from the forest he has learned to read. He lays it aside, not sure what to think of it.

In Hatchet, the pilot who lands on the lake and rescues Brian was flying over in which line of work?

A fur buyer, out mapping trapping camps, picks up the signal and then spots the plane's tail in the water. He asks whether Brian is the kid everyone was looking for a couple of months ago.

In Hatchet, what does Brian tear up to make a rope that ties his log raft to the sunken plane?

His windbreaker, already ripped in the crash, had earlier served as a berry pouch and a hood against insects. As a rope it holds the raft to the tail while he works out how to get inside.

In Hatchet, what name does Brian give the day he finally kills, plucks and roasts a foolbird?

First Meat is how Brian remembers it, because he now counts time by events instead of dates. First Arrow Day and First Rabbit Day follow.

In Hatchet's epilogue, what does Brian do about the Secret he has carried all summer?

Brian keeps it to himself: he never manages to tell his father what he saw. His parents briefly seem to reconcile, then life returns to how it was before the crash.

In Hatchet, what happens the first time Brian draws back the bow he spent a whole night shaping?

It shatters in his hands, and two splinters stick in his forehead just above his eyes. Brian makes a new bow with slimmer limbs and a gentler pull, and counts the first among his mistakes.

In Hatchet, what does Brian build from rocks and a woven gate so fresh food is always in reach?

A fish trap, baited with scraps from his kills, keeps live fish penned in a walled-off part of the lake. Brian builds it after learning the hard way that stored food draws thieves into the shelter.

In Hatchet, what does Brian do on finding a wolf watching him from the bank above the lake?

Brian nods to it, and the wolf looks a moment longer before trotting off with three others behind it. Weeks earlier he would have run; now he sees the animal as one more part of the woods.

In Hatchet, what does Brian decide is the most important rule of survival early in his time at the lake?

Self-pity doesn't work: when the crying is over, Brian notices that he is still alone, still hurt and no better off. From then on he puts the energy into the next task instead.

In Hatchet, from which US state does Brian's flight leave, at an airport in a town called Hampton?

New York is home: Brian lives there with his mother during the school year. She drove him two and a half hours to the airfield, and they spent almost the whole trip in silence.

In Hatchet, what name does Brian give the log raft he pushes out to the tail of the sunken plane?

Brushpile One is built from treetops with the limbs left on, so the logs lock together without rope. It floats too low to stand on, and pushing it to the plane takes more than two hours.

Which children's book award named Hatchet an Honor Book in the year Lincoln: A Photobiography won?

The Newbery Medal is America's top prize for children's writing, and Gary Paulsen was a runner-up three times without ever winning it. Dogsong was one of his other two Honor Books.

Which Alaskan sled dog race did Hatchet author Gary Paulsen enter in 1983, finishing 41st of 54?

The Iditarod took him 17 days and 12 hours to finish. He called giving up mushing in 1990, on health grounds, the most difficult decision he had ever made.

Which Hatchet sequel did Gary Paulsen write after readers complained the rescue came too easily?

Brian's Winter imagines the rescue never happening, so Brian must build snowshoes and a warmer shelter before the cold closes in. Paulsen wrote it in answer to letters about the ending.

In The River, the first sequel to Hatchet, what leaves Brian's adult companion in a coma?

Lightning strikes their camp, knocking the man out and destroying the radio. Brian lashes together a raft and floats him 100 miles downriver to a trading post to save his life.

In Brian's Hunt, the last Hatchet book, which wounded animal does Brian nurse back to health?

A dog, a badly injured Malamute, turns up while Brian is canoeing. Because she is tame, he fears her owners may be hurt as well, and that worry sends him to check on his Cree friends.

Which 1990 film of Hatchet, co-written by Gary Paulsen, stars Jared Rushton as Brian Robeson?

A Cry in the Wild spawned three sequels of its own, starting with White Wolves in 1993. The film sets the crash in the Yukon.

In which 2001 nonfiction book does Gary Paulsen recount the real-life scares that inspired Hatchet?

Guts carries the subtitle The True Stories Behind Hatchet and the Brian Books. In it Paulsen recalls sitting in a small plane as it stalled over the Arctic, and hunting for his own supper as a boy.

In Hatchet, how does Brian keep count of the days he has spent alone at the lake?

Marks on a stone near the shelter give him the tally: 47 by the time he meets the wolves. Brian admits the numbers matter less to him than the events that fill the days.