05/24/2009

My Side of the Mountain

Been reading this great book to the boys at night called My Side of the Mountain (Puffin Modern Classics). It is about a boy from New York City who runs away from home to live on land that his grandfather farmed in the Catskills. He brings an axe and some flint and steel with him and that's about it. Before he left, he learned all he could from books about living on the land and makes a go of it. The great thing about the book is that it is a first person narrative and the kid tells you exactly what he is eating, how he prepares it, etc. If you like cooking, you'd probably like this book too because he goes into pretty good detail about the fresh greens he's able to harvest. In the early part of the book, he finds a nest of duck hawks and takes one of the little ones and raises it as a falconer would. This hawk ends up being an important source of food for him as he releases the hawk and then runs through the brush of a field scaring rabbits out. The hawk dives and soon he has rabbit to eat and rabbit skins for clothing. When his clothes start to wear out, he has to make clothing from deer skins and rabbit. I would recommend this book for girls and boys; I can't imagine any child not enjoying hearing it. There is a sequel to the book as well, and from my brief peek at it the other day, I think it is pretty much in line with the first book. Besides the detail about survival, the book explores what it is to live alone and to live with others. There is a pretty rich psychological angle to the book that reminds me a little bit of Harry Potter. More than once I thought about the relationship between Sam (the main character) and his hawk "Frightful" in the same way I thought about Harry and Hedwig. There is something magical about a hawk that has had training to help humans, whether it carries messages or not. I also think it is interesting that, even when the book was written, America had ceased to really be a place where one had the kind of freedom to live outside of the norm - Sam has to be constantly on guard against drawing the interest of the town. He might be forced to go to school, or back to New York City, or even have his way of life questioned by wildlife officials wary of fire or damage to wildlife. Anyway, sometimes there are books I read to the kids and I can barely force myself to read more than the minimum. This is the kind of book where 45 minutes of reading can pass and I hardly notice.