In Brian's Winter by Gary Paulsen, he wrote this book like Brian never got rescued from the "Hatchet." So, instead of getting rescued Brian had to survive a winter in the Canadian outdoors. He is forced to make many objects to help him survive and to kill animals like rabbits for food. He had only eaten fish that he had caught or rabbit that he had killed during this entire trip. ( )

It never occurred to me that there could be a sequel to "Hatchet". Afterall, at the end of that book Brian was rescued. And yet, there it was amongst the other books by Gary Paulsen, so I picked it up, wondering what it could be about.

Rather than doing 'hand waving' author-magic to get our hero back into the woods, Gary just comes straight out and explains that he got lots of mail asking what would have happened to Brian if he hadn't been rescued. I guess, like me, those readers were wondering if he would have frozen to death. And Gary's solution to this question was to do some research and then to simply pretend that the rescue kit never had a rescue beacon.

It was a very good book for someone who likes a ,leaves you in suspense book. ( )

In this book Brian endures many animals such as a skunk who he becomes very fond of her and names her Betty he also comes to face with wolves, deer, and the most dangerous one of them all a moose which attacked him during his hunt. Brian uses his knowledge of the wilderness to survive. He also uses his memories too help design bows, arrows, and even arrowheads. He got used too living in the wilderness so he worked on new hunting techniques. He also learned how too make his shelter more secure by packing the walls with mud making it water tight and nearly air tight. ( )

To me, I think this book came across as confusion and with having a class of students with special needs, my goal would be to have reading simple and easy. So, because of that, I am not sure if I would introduce this book to my students because it does not necessarily follow up with what they had just read in 'Hatchet'. I think that this book may be interesting for advanced readers however. ( )