Brians Winter.

At the end of Hatchet, thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson, who has been trapped in the Canadian wilderness after a plane accident, decides to dive for a "survival pack" from the submerged aircraft. He almost drowns trying to tear the plane open. He recovers, among other things, an emergency transmitter. Within hours, a pilot receives the beacon and rescues him. The book ends with a note that Brian, who learns wilderness survival through trial and error, probably would not have survived the upcoming harsh winter himself. Paulsen says that many readers wrote to him, complaining about the deus ex machina ending. In response, Paulsen wrote Brian's Winter, which explores what would have happened if Brian had not activated the transmitter.