Hatchet
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50 free Hatchet trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Gary Paulsen's Hatchet has been a classroom staple since 1987. A thirteen-year-old boy is the only passenger in a small plane when the flight goes badly wrong, and he is left alone in the Canadian wilderness with the clothes he is wearing and the hatchet his mother gave him. What follows is one of the best-known survival stories written for young readers. This quiz follows Brian Robeson from the opening chapters to the epilogue: the crash, the hungry early days, the animals that share the lake with him, and the mistakes that teach him how to find food, make fire and build a shelter. There are also questions on the Secret he carries, on the comparisons and other figurative language Paulsen uses, and on the sequels, the film and the author's own life outdoors. It is written for middle school readers and for the teachers and parents reading along with them. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so it works as a chapter check, a book club warm-up or a printable review before a test.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In Hatchet, what kills the pilot of the bush plane flying Brian Robeson north to his father?
A heart attack
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.
Q 02In Hatchet, Brian Robeson discovers sparks after hurling his hatchet at which night-time intruder?
A porcupine
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.
Q 03In Hatchet, which survival-pack item that Brian tosses aside as useless ends up bringing rescue?
The emergency transmitter
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.
Q 04In Hatchet, which disaster wrecks Brian's camp but lifts the tail of the sunken plane into view?
A tornado
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.
Q 05In Hatchet, what is 'the Secret' about his mother that haunts Brian throughout the flight north?
An affair
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.
Q 06In Hatchet, which animal charges Brian at the lake, throws him in the water and injures his ribs?
A moose
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.
Q 07In Hatchet, what does Brian do right after telling the pilot who rescues him his name?
Offers him food
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.
Q 08In Hatchet, which night visitor digs up Brian's buried food and leaves him blind for two hours?
A skunk
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.
Q 09In Hatchet, where is Brian carrying his mother's parting gift, so it survives the crash with him?
On his belt
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.
Q 10In Hatchet, where must Brian Robeson aim to hit a fish, once he realizes that water bends light?
Just below it
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.
Q 11In Hatchet, the lake where Brian brings the plane down is shaped like which letter of the alphabet?
L
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.
Q 12In Hatchet, Brian's father is a mechanical engineer working where in the far north of Canada?
The oil fields
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.
Q 13In Hatchet, why does the plane finally go down after Brian Robeson has kept it flying for hours?
It runs out of fuel
Q 21In Hatchet, which pests swarm Brian at dawn after the crash, forming 'a living coat' on his skin?
Mosquitoes
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.
Q 22In Hatchet, which figure of speech calls Brian's misery 'like being in a pit, a dark, deep pit'?
A simile
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.
Q 23In Hatchet, which literary device has Brian think 'I have a friend named fire' at his first blaze?
Personification
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.
Q 14In Hatchet, what does the pilot let Brian try from the copilot's seat shortly before falling ill?
Steer the plane
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.
Q 15In Hatchet, which animal does Brian find sharing his berry patch, less than twenty feet away?
A black bear
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.
Q 16In Hatchet, which berries does Brian find in a clearing after the 'gut cherries' make him sick?
Raspberries
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.
Q 17After his rescue in Hatchet, Brian learns the 'gut cherries' that made him ill were which fruit?
Chokecherries
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.
Q 18In Hatchet, what does Brian dig out of a sand pile after following strange tracks up from the lake?
Turtle eggs
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.
Q 19In Hatchet, which tinder at last takes Brian's sparks after grass and a twenty-dollar bill fail?
Birch bark
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.
Q 20In Hatchet, where does Brian make his lakeside shelter, weaving a wall of sticks across the opening?
Under a rock overhang
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.
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.
Q 24In Hatchet, which figure of speech has Brian's 'stomach tightened into a series of rolling knots'?
A metaphor
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.
Q 25In Hatchet, a mother's gift of a hatchet just before the doomed flight is which literary device?
Foreshadowing
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.
Q 26In Hatchet, Gary Paulsen writes that the hatchet cuts the sunken plane's skin as if it were what?
Soft cheese
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.
Q 27In Hatchet, Brian learns to spot hidden foolbirds by their shape, which he compares to which fruit?
A pear
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.
Q 28Which type of conflict drives Hatchet, a survival story in which Brian has no human enemy at all?
Person versus nature
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.
Q 29In Hatchet, which English teacher's advice to stay positive does Brian recall after the crash?
Perpich
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.
Q 30In Hatchet, which friend is cycling with Brian when he sees the Secret and later appears in a dream?
Terry
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.