Book: The River

·        Title:  The River

·        Author: Gary Paulsen         

·        Illustrator: Neil Waldman   

·        Publisher: Yearling

·        Copyright: 1991 by Gary Paulsen

·        ISBN#: 0-440-40753-2

·        Genre: Fiction                                 

·        Library Location: Pampa Lovett Memorial Library

·        Summary:

                 

                  The river is about a boy who had been stranded in the forest fifty-four days with only a hatchet after his plane had crashed over the vast wilderness in the Northeast. It had been two years since this crash and the government has asked him to do it all over again. To help them understand how they can better make their training become as real as possible, Brian decides to make the journey once again to help other people learn how to survive out in the wilderness. Brian will not be alone this time Derek Haltzer; a government psychologist will be going with him to write down how to survive the wilderness.  They land on the lake they previously picked out on a map everything was going well until a violent storm came. Derek and the radio were struck by lightning, the radio was dead, and Derek was in a coma. It is up to Brian to save him. He makes a decision to take him down river to a trading post for help.

    

 ·   Personal Comments:

           

            I really enjoyed this book. It has adventure, terror, and heroism. I thought that this book was a good read because it had different things in this book I thought that would be a good experience for kids to understand what is was like to be in the woods. It has survival skills that cannot be taught in schools. It shows how someone can try his or her best to do the impossible to save a life.  I also liked this book because it has a good description on how the wilderness looks like and what lives in the wilderness.

·        Suggested Use in Classroom:

           

       I would like to use this book in my classroom, because it shows relationships in the world between hierarchy of ecosystems, species, and landscapes. These would be a great way to introduce the Kingdoms in biology to my class. This story has a great ending and it shows how to survive in the wood. This book will have a good influence on the children and show them how they can relate the book by what they learn about ecosystems and animals in the classroom.