Brian's return (Brian's Saga #4)

Amazon.com Review 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 From Publishers Weekly The appearance of yet another sequel to Hatchet may raise a few eyebrows, but Paulsen delivers a vigorous, stirring story that stands on its own merits. Whereas the previous continuations, The River and Brian's Winter, essentially offer more of the same survivalist thrills that have made Hatchet so popular, this novel goes further, posing a more profound question: How does someone go from living on the edge to polite membership in ordinary society? (Paulsen addresses the same theme, albeit more grimly, in his Civil War novel Soldier's Heart.) Here, Brian has returned to his mother's house and can barely reconcile the seemingly arbitrary demands of high school with the life-or-death challenges he surmounted during his months alone in the wilderness. With the aid of a counselor, Brian formulates what had been an almost instinctual, unacknowledged plan to revisit the bush, and this solo trip, not his interlude with his mother, marks the true "return" of the title. The few cliff-hangers are almost beside the point: the great adventure here is the embrace of the wild, the knowledge of life at its most elemental. Aside from its occasional use of YA conventions (e.g., the preternaturally sensitive counselor; jejune rhapsodies over the relevance of Shakespeare), this work is bold, confident and persuasive, its transcendental themes powerfully seductive. Ages 12-up.

For more than a decade, readers and reviewers everywhere have praised Gary Paulsen's exciting stories about brave Brian Robeson. In the Newbery Honor book Hatchet, 13-year-old Brian was stranded in the Canadian wilderness with only the clothes on his back and a hatchet to help him survive. The River brought 15-year-old Brian back to the wilderness for a government project -- where he was left with a wounded partner and a rapid river to navigate. An alternative sequel, Brian's Winter, posed the question: What if Brian had not been rescued? Now comes Brian's Return -- the final, gripping conclusion to Paulsen's extraordinary saga.

VOYA

It has been two years since the small plane crashed in the wilderness and Brian is now nearly sixteen. No matter how hard he tries, he does not fit into today's fast-paced world. He longs for the solitude of the northern lakes and woods. After a vicious fight with a high school football player, Brian is sent to a counselor to work out his problems. Brian just wants to go back home to the woods. Paulsen spends sixty pages of this novel preparing Brian for his trip back to the northern wilderness. The reader learns in great detail about specific types of bows and arrows, as well as other camping/survival equipment. With a canoe and his bow and arrows, Brian blends back into the woods and waterways he loves so much. An encounter with a bear and a torrential rainstorm only remind him that one must prepare for the unexpected in the wilderness. Also unexpected is the arrival of the old woodsman, Billy. When Brian tells Billy about the deer he saw that day, and how it looked directly at him, Billy says that it is Brian's medicine deer and he must listen to what the deer tells him. In the morning Brian finds a rawhide loop with a bit of whitetail deer tail and a crow feather tied to it-medicine to guide him. Brian dips his paddle into the water and as his canoe silently glides through the pristine wilderness he knows that he will follow his medicine, wherever it will take him. Paulsen fans will love this final chapter in Brian's quest for the woodsman's way of life. The author's note explains that the things that happen to Brian in the four novels-Hatchet (Simon & Schuster, 1987/VOYA February 1988), The River (Delacorte, 1991/VOYA August 1991), Brian's Winter (Delacorte, 1996/VOYA February 1997), and Brian's Return-have happened to Paulsen during his life-long romance with the wilderness. VOYA Codes: 3Q 4P M (Readable without serious defects, Broad general YA appeal, Middle School-defined as grades 6 to 8).

Brian returns to the wilderness to discover where he truly belongs in this follow-up to the award-winning classic Hatchet from three-time Newbery Honor-winning author Gary Paulsen! As millions of readers of Hatchet, The River, and Brian's Winter know, Brian Robeson survived alone in the wilderness by finding solutions to extraordinary challenges. But now that's he's back to ordinary life, he can't make sense of high school life. He feels disconnected, more isolated than he did alone in the north woods. How can Brian discover his true path in life, and where he belongs? The answer is to return. Gay Paulsen skillfully explores the meaning of belonging and purpose, and reminds us of a crucial rule of the wilderness: expect the unexpected. “Bold, confident and persuasive.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred “Paulsen bases many of his protagonist's experiences on his own, and the wilderness through which Brian moves is vividly observed.” —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Read all the Hatchet Adventures!Brian's WinterThe RiverBrian's ReturnBrian's Hunt After having survived alone in the wilderness, Brian finds that he can no longer live in the city but must return to the place where he really belongs After surviving in the wilderness on his own, Brian finds that he can no longer live in the city but must return to the place where he really belongs