My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
Grade: B+
Genre: Book
I am sure that we all went through that phase when we wanted to run away from home to live in the wild. My Side of the Mountain tells the story of Sam Gribley, a boy who runs away from home to live on his own in the mountains. His story is rather interesting because he ends up living inside a tree trunk, trains a falcon to help him hunt, and lives off the land. The story is narrated in first person by Sam himself, giving the reader insight into his thoughts.
This book is written in a way that gets the reader attached to the character Sam and makes him feel real. It is also easy to become attached to the animals that he becomes friends with such as the Baron Weasel and his falcon Frightful. Even though he is very smart and clever that it is almost unbelievable, Sam seems so real just because of his emotions such as excitement and loneliness that occur throughout the book.
Of course, not everything in this story was all that believable. Sam did not run into any issues when he stored his food outdoors. I would have at least thought a bear would show up by smelling out Sam’s food supply and eating a portion of it. Or that he would have at least broken his leg from falling off a tree or gotten shot by a hunter during hunting season (after all, he did make and wear an outfit out of dear skin).
But nonetheless it was hard to put the book down because it is not very predictable and far from boring in my opinion. The ending was very surprising as well. This book made me want to run away from home myself to live in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado or to make acorn pancakes. But since that is not a possibility right now it was great fun to at least experience the adventures with Sam Gribley as I read this book.
*Image borrowed from http://www.scls.lib.wi.us/sun/SunPrairiePublicLibrary-SurvivalStories.html
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