The River by Gary Paulsen
A sequel to Hatchet, 13 year old Brian returns to the wilderness with a man named Derrick, in order to show the man how he survived on his own in the woods after the plane crash in Hatchet. I've read this one once before and didn't care for it, and I'm still not overly thrilled with how short it was. Yes, it IS a younger reader novel, but it could have been a beefier story. Brian's new set of challenges seem almost trivial to what he faced in the first book, even with Derrick's life depending on the choices Brian makes. It's disappointingly short, even if it's an okay read.
Brian's Winter by Gary Paulsen
This one is an AU of a sorts, exploring what would have happened to Brian if he had not been rescued at the end of summer in the first book. Here, Brian is still stranded in the Canadian wilderness as a brief fall and harsh winter set in. Forced to hunt bigger game for both meat and clothing, Brian faces a whole new set of problems from the ones that nearly killed him in the gentle summer days. As with the others, I wish the book was longer, more in depth, and threw more curveballs at our hero. I wish the series was meant for adults, in order to give us those more involved stories, but I really did enjoy this one, as much as I enjoyed Hatchet.
