50 Fun Facts About My Side of the Mountain

In My Side of the Mountain, Sam Gribley runs away to which New York range, Rip Van Winkle's old haunt?

The Catskills hide the old Gribley farm, which Sam knows only from stories. He arrives in May with little more than a penknife, a ball of cord, an ax and forty dollars.

In My Side of the Mountain, Sam Gribley makes his home inside the trunk of which towering evergreen tree?

A hemlock on the old Gribley land becomes Sam's shelter. He hollows it until he can sit comfortably inside, then builds a bed and, before winter, a small fireplace.

In My Side of the Mountain, what kind of bird is Frightful, which Sam Gribley trains to catch his meals?

A peregrine falcon can top 200 mph in a hunting dive, which is why Sam wants one to catch game for him. He studies hawk training at the library before he goes looking for a chick.

In My Side of the Mountain, the lost stranger Sam Gribley nicknames Bando turns out to hold which job?

College English teacher is Bando's real calling, and he is lost rather than on the run. He stays about ten days and becomes the closest thing Sam has to a human friend.

Which author, who kept 173 pets besides dogs and cats, wrote My Side of the Mountain?

Jean Craighead George wrote and illustrated the 1959 novel herself. She drew on a childhood spent camping, foraging and training hawks with her naturalist father and brothers.

At the end of My Side of the Mountain, who arrives in June planning to settle beside Sam Gribley's tree?

His whole family turns up, parents and eight brothers and sisters, to settle on the Gribley land. His mother, stung by what the newspapers were saying, is behind the move. Sam is glad, and sorry his time alone is over.

In My Side of the Mountain, how does Sam Gribley's father respond to the plan to live off the land?

He lets Sam go, sure the boy will be back within a day or two. He asks only that Sam tell someone in town if he actually makes it.

In My Side of the Mountain, what kind of animal is The Baron, whom Sam Gribley names for his lordly strut?

A weasel caught in one of Sam's traps earns the title by showing no fear at all. He bites Sam, marches off like royalty and keeps his den under a boulder near the tree.

In My Side of the Mountain, what do New York newspapers call the unseen Sam Gribley in their headlines?

The wild boy is the label the papers use after locals report glimpses of a child in the woods and deer carcasses going missing. Bando carries the clippings up the mountain to show Sam.

In My Side of the Mountain, Sam names his hunting bird Frightful in memory of which ordeal?

Taking her from the nest means climbing a cliff while the mother bird strikes Sam again and again. He grabs the biggest of three chicks, a female, and gets away with a bloodied shoulder.

In My Side of the Mountain, the abandoned farm Sam sets out to find once belonged to which relative?

His great-grandfather's farm has been abandoned so long that the farmhouse is no longer standing when Sam finally finds the place. A librarian in the nearest town points him to it.

In My Side of the Mountain, what is Sam escaping when he leaves New York City for the woods?

A crowded apartment shared with eight brothers and sisters is all Sam has known. He wants space and quiet, and he has read up on survival at the public library before he goes.

My Side of the Mountain opens partway through the story, with Sam shut in his tree during what?

A blizzard keeps Sam inside in early December, and he uses the time to tell how he got there. Only many chapters later does the story catch up with that storm.

In My Side of the Mountain, how does Sam enlarge the hollow in the old tree he lives in?

By burning it out and hacking away the charred wood, Sam turns a small cavity into a room he can sit up in. An ax is one of the few tools he carried from the city.

In My Side of the Mountain, Sam's father makes a surprise visit to the tree on which day?

Christmas Day brings Sam's father up the mountain, a day after Bando arrives for the holiday. He lingers a few more days, ice fishing and setting traps, and leaves proud of his son.

In My Side of the Mountain, which character cuts Sam's hair and finds him books on training hawks?

Miss Turner, the librarian in the nearest town, trims his hair with the library scissors when she sees how long it has grown. She is also the one who tells Sam where the old Gribley land lies.

In My Side of the Mountain, what does the elderly Mrs. Fielder make Sam help her pick?

Strawberries from the patch Sam thinks of as his own fill her basket, and then she marches him into town. On that walk he spots a hunting bird overhead and decides to train one.

In My Side of the Mountain, Sam leaves home with a penknife, cord, an ax, $40 and which fire starter?

Flint and steel sound simple, but Sam struggles to get a flame from them on his first night out. An old man named Bill, whose door he bangs on for help, has to teach him how.

In My Side of the Mountain, Sam learns which food-gathering trick by watching the raccoon Jessie Coon James?

Digging up mussels from the creek bed is Jessie's speciality, and Sam copies her. He assumes the scrawny, cross-eyed raccoon is a male until she turns up with a litter.

In My Side of the Mountain, Bando calls Sam by the name of which 19th-century American writer?

Thoreau spent just over two years in a cabin he built near the pond and wrote a celebrated book about it. A boy living alone in a hollow tree strikes Bando as his natural heir.

In My Side of the Mountain, which sound convinces Sam that the sleeping stranger Bando is an outlaw?

Police sirens wail near the mountain just before Sam finds the man asleep, so he assumes a bandit and shortens the word to a nickname. Curiosity wins, and he offers the stranger a venison meal.

In My Side of the Mountain, which craft do Sam and Bando build during Bando's ten-day summer stay?

A raft is the big project of the visit, and it outlasts it. In September Sam pushes it down the stream alone to gather arrowleaf bulbs and bulrush roots to store.

In My Side of the Mountain, Sam builds a fireplace and chimney for his tree out of which material?

Clay mixed with grasses makes the fireplace, and Sam shapes a small chimney from it as well. The idea comes as autumn turns cold and he realizes the tree will need heating to see him through the winter.

In My Side of the Mountain, Sam turns the hide of his first deer into what for his tree home?

A door of tanned deerskin closes off the tree at last. Sam wastes nothing from the animal: the meat is eaten or stored, and a bone becomes the head of a forked frog spear.

In My Side of the Mountain, which food cures the winter nosebleeds Sam gets from a lack of vitamins?

Rabbit liver supplies the vitamin C missing from a winter without fruit or greens. Once cured, Sam worries about the animals too and chops down tree limbs for the deer to feed on.

In My Side of the Mountain, which schoolboy reporter tracks down Sam and trades his silence for a stay?

Matt Spell works after school for a newspaper and hopes the story will make him a real reporter. Sam allows him a week at the camp, and Matt reveals the location anyway.

In My Side of the Mountain, what was Sam's father before he took work on the New York docks?

A sailor until Sam was born, he always seemed to like the sea better than the land. At first he doubts that his son can last more than a day or two on a mountain.

In My Side of the Mountain, Sam writes his journal entries on which material he gathers in the woods?

Birch bark is Sam's paper in the woods, and he covers it with notes and drawings. Those entries are woven all through the story he tells.

In My Side of the Mountain, what brings a fire warden to Sam's camp, forcing him to hide for days?

Smoke from his cooking gives Sam away, and the warden camps overnight beside the tree. Sam sleeps rough, checks his traps on the quiet and meets The Baron in one of them.

In My Side of the Mountain, the deerskin straps Sam cuts to tether Frightful go by which hawking term?

Jesses are the thin straps that keep a trained bird under control on the fist or secured to a perch. Sam starts planning them while he is still hiding from the fire warden.

In My Side of the Mountain, which bird is Frightful's first real catch, soon after she masters the lure?

A sparrow is her first real prize, but Sam trades it for the lure and feeds her himself. He believes a hunting bird that eats what it catches will not stay tame.

In My Side of the Mountain, Sam names which busy winter birds after neighbors from Third Avenue?

Chickadees rushing from tree to tree after food remind Sam of the people in his old building. Mr. Bracket, Mrs. O'Brien, Mrs. Callaway and Mrs. Federio each get a bird named after them.

In My Side of the Mountain, which birds laying eggs amid the snow tell Sam that spring is close?

Great horned owls lay while the mountain is still white, and Sam records the eggs in his journal. By then melting snow and foraging deer have already hinted that winter is ending.

In My Side of the Mountain, what does Sam call Tom Sidler, the town boy who mocks his deerskins?

Mr. Jacket is Sam's private name for the teenager he meets in the town drugstore, who asks whether he is playing cowboys and Indians. Stung, Sam invites him up to see the camp.

In My Side of the Mountain, what do Sam and Bando build in spring as visitors keep arriving?

A guest house is their spring project, a sign that Sam now expects company. The boy who came to be alone has realized how much he misses people.

In My Side of the Mountain, Sam walks to the library in which village, seat of Delaware County?

Delhi is a real village, and readers have turned up at its library asking to see the Gribley farm. The farm itself never existed outside the novel.

In My Side of the Mountain, what is the name of the wooded peak where the old Gribley farm lies?

Bitter Mountain rises above the valley town where Sam visits the library. Hikers, sightseers and locals all cross it, which is why he works so hard to stay hidden.

In My Side of the Mountain, Sam lights his tree with deer fat held in which natural container?

A turtle shell filled with deer fat serves as his candle, with a strip torn from his old city trousers for a wick. By its light he writes up the story of his year.

My Side of the Mountain is told from which point of view, with Sam's journal notes woven in?

First person suits a story that is one boy's account of his own year. Sam narrates in the past tense and drops in the notes and sketches he made at the time.

Which later novel by the author of My Side of the Mountain follows a runaway lost on the Alaskan tundra?

Julie of the Wolves won its author the 1973 medal for the year's most distinguished American children's book. The idea came to her during a magazine assignment in Barrow, Alaska.

Which recognition did My Side of the Mountain earn from American librarians in 1960?

A Newbery Honor went to the book as a runner-up; the top prize that year went to Joseph Krumgold's Onion John. Its author waited thirteen more years to win the medal herself.

Which bird was the first pet of the author of My Side of the Mountain, raised among naturalists?

A turkey vulture was her first pet, in a childhood of camping trips along the Potomac River. Her father, an entomologist, taught his children which plants to eat and how to fish with homemade hooks.

The author of My Side of the Mountain, once in the White House press corps, reported for which newspaper?

The Washington Post employed her in the 1940s, in the city where she was born. She later spent thirteen years as a writer and editor at Reader's Digest.

The 1969 film of My Side of the Mountain moves Sam Gribley's adventure from New York to which country?

Canada replaces upstate New York: the film's Sam leaves Toronto for the mountains of Quebec. It was shot on location around the town of Knowlton.

Which folk singer and actor plays Bando in the 1969 film of My Side of the Mountain?

Theodore Bikel also wrote nearly all the songs he performs on screen. The film remakes Bando as a wanderer who travels the world collecting folk music.

In the 1969 film of My Side of the Mountain, unlike the novel, what becomes of Frightful?

A hunter kills her in the film, a loss the book's readers never have to face. In the novel she lives on, and two later novels continue her story.

Which environmental lawyer credits My Side of the Mountain with his lifelong passion for training hawks?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said the novel set him on the path to training birds of prey, and from there to environmental law. A television pet expert and a nature writer credit it the same way.

In the sequel to My Side of the Mountain, which sister of Sam Gribley builds a tree house, then disappears?

Alice sets off on a trek of her own the day after Frightful is taken away, and Sam and Bando track her across the hills. The author's daughter had urged her to put a girl in the sequel.

In On the Far Side of the Mountain, the man who seizes Frightful from Sam Gribley poses as what?

A conservation officer could lawfully confiscate an endangered bird kept without a license, so Sam gives her up. Only later does Bando recognize the man as an impostor who means to sell her.

The twin brothers of the author of My Side of the Mountain became famous for studying which Yellowstone animals?

Grizzly bears were the subject of a twelve-year study her brothers Frank and John began in 1959, the year the novel came out. As boys they had trained hawks and given their sister a bird of her own.