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“The slithering moved again, he thought towards him at first, and terror took him, stopping his breath.” As stated in the novel Hatchet by Gary Paulson. The novel Hatchet is about a boy who is going to see his father in the north. The plane pilot has a heart attack and the plane crashes in the northern woods. Will Brian be able to survive?
The sequence of events in the novel follows a very believable process throughout the entire novel. Everything just kind of floats along and all the scenes fit together nicely. The introduction starts the book off with a bit of excitement and the author refers back to it throughout the book. It really sets the story up for a good read. The plot does not build tension until the end few chapters, and as you're reading, one event passes to another, but Brian never goes anywhere. The climax is logical but not very exciting, the book kind of keeps going and going but then all of a sudden it is over with not much excitement. The conclusion is good because there are no questions left unanswered.
The main character, Brian, changes throughout the book in very good relation to the plot line. At the beginning he is lazy and used to having someone else do everything for him. Near the end he is responsible for himself and way more independent. His character traits change progressively and in a realistic fashion. I like the character in this book because he is much like a regular 13 year old. He is very believable because of the way he acts. For example the way he eats because he likes to eat hamburgers and a lot of things that a 13 year old boy would eat. I could not really see myself in his situation because my parents are not divorced, and also for very many other reasons.
The author, Gary Paulsen, creates very good and clear pictures in my mind because he uses a very descriptive language. For example here is a sentence from the book to show how the author writes: 'Here the trees were not all the way down but twisted and snapped off half way up from the ground , so their tops were all down and rotted and gone leaving the snags poking into the sky like broken teeth.' He uses similes, metaphors, and personification in his writing which helps create a picture. The author puts excitement into scenes by writing using a suspenseful and good language like the caption from the book I used at the beginning of this critique.
I would rate this book a seven out of ten because it was pretty good but it was kind of boring at times.
Other information: Cost: $ 4.95 Canadian Ages: 12 and up Published by: The Penguin Group (Penguin Books) Pages: 195
Posted by 24185 on 4/12/07; 1:36:38 PM
from the Heather dept.
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