Review of My Side of The Mountain

Today I will be reviewing the novel My Side of the Mountain, written by Jean Craighead George, on my quest to review the books I like.

My Side of the Mountain is a novel about a boy, named Sam Gribly, who leaves his home to find his grandfather’s farm out in the Catskills mountains. His father told him that the Griblys are no longer a land family, but a sea family. He goes to live of the land and prove his father wrong. With only some flint and steel, an axe, a pen knife, some string, and forty dollars, he runs away from home. He has some trouble on his first day, unable to make a fishing line or start a fire. He sleeps in the cold that night. The next day, he goes to an old man’s house to cook the fish he caught. The old man then teaches Sam how to make a fire. Then he goes to the library to find his grandfathers farm. The kind librarian, Miss Turner, helps him find the farm. He goes to the farm, which is now in ruins. When he gets back to his camp site, he burns out a tree for his home. While he is sleeping out in the strawberry fields, an old woman tells him to help her pick strawberries for her award winning jam. On the way into town, she points out some duck hawks, but Sam believes them to be Peragrine Falcons. When she leaves him alone, he goes and snatches a chick. They grow together, and with his traps and his falcon Fearless, they can live off the land.

This is a book about defiance, resourcefulness, and adventure. I very much enjoyed reading this book and highly recommend it. It is a well written story, and it is interesting to see who same meets.