Title: Brian’s Winter
Author: Gary Paulsen
Publisher: Scholastic
Place and year of publication: Broadway, New York 1996
Number of pages: 133
Where I found the book: CHS Library
Author: Gary Paulsen
Publisher: Scholastic
Place and year of publication: Broadway, New York 1996
Number of pages: 133
Where I found the book: CHS Library
Thirteen year old Brian Robeson is
stranded in the Canadian wilderness. To survive he must rely on his
intelligence, his instinct, and a hatchet. He had been in a plane crash. He had
lived day by day for 54 days until he found the survival pack in the plane
which has helped live. This book is a companion book to “Hatchet” and the plot
is “what would happen if Brian had not been rescued by the plane. In
"Hatchet” Brian has nothing to help him survive except the few items he
happened to have with him when the plane crashed. The title Brian’s winter
means that this book will be talking about Brian surviving the winter. It
doesn’t mention what time this happens but we know it happens in winter time. In
this story Brian is the only main character. The theme of this book is don’t
lose hope in hardest situations and think of ways on how you can improve that
situation. Brian is one of those people who are actually better off
independently.
In this book there are 2 parts,
the first part is fall and second part is winter. In The Fall Brian receives
many signs that winter is coming but doesn’t notice them until the end of fall.
In the survival package there was a rifle but Brian was not comfortable with it
and it was running out of bullets so he stuck to his bow and arrow. One night
as Brian sleeps in his shelter a bear comes and eats some of Brian’s fish. Brian
then notices the bears blocking the shelter and Brian yells “Hey- get out of
here”. The bear threw Brian across the campground leaving him scratched and
soar in the morning. Brian then decided he would need to make a larger weapon
he couldn’t use his small bow because it was good for smaller game like rabbits
and fool birds. He then made 2 larger bows, one served as a spare. He could use
this bow to defend himself and hunt bigger game. Later on in fall he with more
and more signs of winter coming, Brian decides
to winter proof his shelter by filling in mud through the wooden walls like how
he saw beavers do it. He also has a small fire inside his shelter. Other ways
Brian gets ready for winter is by making a vest from rabbits skin to wear.
One day he decides to hunt bigger
game so as he was outside his camp ground he saw a group of wolves eating a
deer he waited for the wolves to finish and took what’s left of the deer for
himself. There was a lot of deer meat left and lasted weeks. He would also make
boots from the deer hide. A couple days later he notices he is laying between
an angry bear and some venison he left out last night. He tried to move out of
the way but the tightening string on his sleeping bag would not come loose so
he was stuck in it. The bear scooped up and tossed him to the side. The bear is
about to finish him off when he hears something. He turns around to a direct
spray in the face from a skunk. The skunk comes by very often and threats to
spray Brian so that Brian will toss her a piece of meat. He then named her Betty.
With Brian low on meat he goes hunting and succeeds in getting a moose which he
had a one on one scenario but he was Brian was safe at the end. Brian then
realizes that he will be stuck here for a long time so he tries to make living
in winter easier so he makes some snow shoes that prove to work. Brian looks
near the lake and finds some Human footprints. Following those footprints he
finds that just a few hundred meters from him a Native-American family is
living there. They get supplies from an airplane that comes there every month.
Brian gets to spend a month with them and he ends up really enjoying their
company. When the month was over the plane came and took Brian with them to
head back home to meet his family and friends.
MY
THOUGHT
I chose this book because I am interested in
survival type of stories and I thought that Hatchet was an amazing action book
and I wanted to see how much better can this story get and it did get better. I
think this book was really informative about the survival subject. It talked
about how hunting and surviving didn’t only take skill but a good positive
thinking and that is true. In the beginning I found it hard to pay attention to
the book because there was only one character, but in the end Gary Paulsen
introduced a lot of details keeping me glued to my story. One other thing I liked about this book is
being focused on just one idea, which kept me from getting lost in so many
details and small stories inside the story. I recommend this to people interested in
survival and action stories.
CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE
This book was not written in a Christian
perspective. But throughout this book Brian shows Christ-like behaviour even
though he is the only character. Some ways he does that is not by swearing or
cursing. Some ways Gary Paulsen could have made Brian more of a religious
character is if he would talk about Brian praying to God for help and just
talking to him. But this also depends on the author’s faith so Gary Paulsen may
not be a Christian making that a reason why this book is not written from a
Christian perspective. In the end Brian finally gets to talk with other humans
who were Native Americans and after spending three weeks with them he feels as
if he is part of the family and he doesn’t want to leave. Another way this
reflects Christ-like behaviour is that Brian is acceptance of others and
doesn’t judge.
