Stranded at a Swimming Pool

Brian Robeson, the protagonist of Gary Paulsen's Hatchet would have been proud of the boys in Garrett's book club. They proved they could survive a crash landing at a lake swimming pool and dive for a lost hatchet.

To keep cool during the 100+ temperatures forecast for this month's book club meeting, the boys converged on Garrett's neighborhood swimming pool to experience Brian's various problems around his lake. Prepared with swimming suits and towels, the boys first tried to spear some fish. In the book, Brian has to learn to aim slightly lower than the waiting fish with his spear in order to catch his dinner. This water refraction challenge was the gathering activity for this month's book club. Using fish cut from sponges with coins inside to weigh them down and fishing line attached, half the boys made the fish swim while the other half tried to spear them using telescoping marshmallow roasting sticks (from the Target dollar section).

While the boys gathered and speared sponge fish (with strict instructions not to spear any feet, toes, or hands), Garrett's mom prepared the ending MRE Beef Stew feast. This way the beef stew could be "cooking" and cooling for the boys to try near the end of the meeting.

After the feast was prepared and set aside, the boys were ready for the next test of their Brian Robeson survival skills. Near the end of the book, Brian decides to try to get a survival kit out of the submerged plane that crash landed, leaving him alone and stranded. During his attempt to cut through the fuselage of the plane, he drops his hatchet into the murky lake. Brian then successfully retrieves his hatchet. For this challenge, the boys dove one at a time to the bottom of the pool to retrieve a sunken hatchet. They had to not only retrieve the hatchet, however, but as many other small items that might help their survival. The boy who retrieved the most items in one dive won.

Once each boy had retrieved the items from the bottom, the boys dried off and gathered around to try some of the foods Brian Robeson ate during his stint at the lake. They devoured the fresh raspberries, but only tentatively tried the freeze-dried beef stew.

After they had finished their feast, the boys put together emergency survival kits. The kits were housed in binder pencil pockets with their names on a hatchet on cardboard showing through the window. The kits contained emergency ponchos, oven bags to hold water, fishing line and a fishing hook, needle and thread, waterproof matches, duct tape, safety pins, hard candy, and gum. Before they placed each item in their kits, the boys had to tell a way that Brian could have used the items to survive. Garrett's mom instructed the boys to keep these kits out of reach of their little brothers and sisters and to only use them if they truly needed something to survive.

After making the survival kits, the boys had the chance to win an actual hatchet by answering the most comprehension questions correctly. The boys had to raise their hands to answer the questions, and if they got a question wrong, they were penalized a point. Because the prize was so coveted, the boys really got into answering the questions and showing their knowledge of the book. In the end, though, Spencer won the hatchet.

Garrett chose Caiden as next month's vice president and the boys voted for Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing for August's book.