What is the best book you've ever read for School?

[Lynx]

Yeah, Hatchet was pretty awesome. Never read the sequels, though.

Also, I read The Indian in the Cupboard in either 5th or 6th grade. I liked it so much I went to the library and checked out its three sequels, all of which were really good. I don't know how well they'd hold up now that I'm a good 11 years older, but they were really entertaining back in the day.

EDIT: Apparently, there was a fourth sequel, but that was after I long forgot about that series.

 

[ultimatedjf]

Paulsen followed Hatchet with four additional novels about Brian. In the first, The River, a government agent asks Brian to return to the Canadian wilderness-about 100 miles from his original camp-and show him how he managed to survive. The agent gets struck by lightning and falls into a coma, leaving Brian to construct a raft to transport him to a trading post.

Paulsen revisited Hatchet in Brian's Winter. Paulsen answers (by popular demand, he says) the question of what would have happened if Brian had been forced to spend a winter in the Canadian wilderness. This is an alternate version of the story of Hatchet, in which the survival pack radio didn't work, so he couldn't call for help.

The third additional novel, titled Brian's Return, tells the story of Brian returning to the Canadian wilderness in a canoe, aptly named the Raft, a gift given to him at the end of the book, The River.

In 2003, Paulsen wrote Brian's Hunt, in which Brian finds an injured dog while in his canoe. He thinks that the dog belongs to trappers, so he goes to his Native friends to ask if anyone lost a dog. When he arrives at their house, he finds the mauled bodies of his friends. He finds out a bear killed them and noticed that one of their daughters is missing. He later finds her in a canoe out on the lake and goes to hunt the bear.

The River was weird. The title page didn't even appear until something like 100 pages into the book.

 

[Frapalino]

Yeah, Hatchet was pretty awesome. Never read the sequels, though.

Also, I read The Indian in the Cupboard in either 5th or 6th grade. I liked it so much I went to the library and checked out its three sequels, all of which were really good. I don't know how well they'd hold up now that I'm a good 11 years older, but they were really entertaining back in the day.

EDIT: Apparently, there was a fourth sequel, but that was after I long forgot about that series.

I read this about a year ago. I was astonished at how racist it was. Pretty insane that school children still read it.

 

[Lynx]

I read this about a year ago. I was astonished at how racist it was. Pretty insane that school children still read it.

Hmmmm. . .looking back on it, I suppose it was pretty racist. But, I was a young lad and I didn't think about such things, so I didn't notice.

 

[compound]

We read that in the 9th grade and I loved it. Except for

Spoiler

the Sealander's philosophy. You're an advanced society and the best riot-control weapon you can come up with is an artificial spider-web that kills everything it touches? Even if they weren't involved, just nearby? You ****ing pricks. All the psychic powers in the world and you still don't understand the value of lives. **** you. I'm having my little sister thought-bomb you all into submission when we get there. Then we're taking your autogyro back and getting the rest of my friends.

I was just starting to read the X-titles around the same time, and the

Spoiler

Sealanders' philosophy always struck me as what would have happened if Professor Xavier had adapted Magneto's approach towards inter-species relations.

It was The Chrysalids here too. I don't get why Re-Birth would be a better title though. They're almost synonymus, but one sounds cooler and more unique.

Quite simple, really -- it's just a matter of preference. I've never been a huge fan of "hard" sci-fi naming conventions, and The Chrysalids makes it sounds like the kind of narrative where the human drama elements potentially take a backseat to speculative science wankery and rehashed genre tropes, I guess.

I'll concede that it's a more unique title, but I guess it has less "mass appeal", and I can kinda understand why its US publishers might have chosen to market it as Re-Birth.