Brian's Return

A deer in his canoe, a bear attack, a leg stabbed with an arrowhead--it's just another week in the life of 16-year-old Brian Robeson. In his opinion, this beats a date at Mackey's Pizza Den, a fight with a bully, and a video game at the mall any day. After having survived a plane crash and 54 days in the Canadian wilderness several years earlier, Brian can't seem to fit into "civilization." The world of high school and family life makes no sense anymore. So Brian begins to plan. It's time to return to the woods. This time, though, he makes no plans to come back home.

Gary Paulsen, the popular author of many critically acclaimed books for young people and winner of the 1997 Margaret A. Edward Award, has written another sequel to the Newbery Honor Book Hatchet. (The River and Brian's Winter were earlier sequels.) Paulsen's graphic and detailed descriptions of Brian's adventures demonstrate a deep familiarity and connection to the wilderness; and in fact the author has spent much of his life in the bush, living almost entirely off the land. Brian's experiences in nature parallel his growing independence and maturity; readers who don't feel like they "fit in" will easily relate to the young protagonist's search for identity and purity. (Ages 11 and older) --Emilie Coulter