It was an hour and a half’s drive on the highway to Joe and Ellen’s off-the-grid house in the middle of nowhere. I watched sports highlights until my phone battery ran out. Dead. Unbelievable. I thought I’d charged it the night before, but obviously not. Bad planning, Flynn, I thought. I had no idea how bad.
I looked out the window at the endless bleak forest of leafless trees whipping by. It went on forever. The sky was sullen and overcast, clouds hanging heavy and low. It felt dark, even though the car clock said it was only 2:20 PM. Why anyone would choose to leave the smooth streets, bright lights and fast-food outlets of the city to camp permanently out here in the wilderness was totally beyond my comprehension.
Looking out the window got so depressing that I actually turned to some schoolwork I had brought along. I read the blurb on the back of My Side of the Mountain, the book we were supposed to be reading for Outdoor Ed and which I hadn’t even looked at it yet. Apparently, it’s about a kid who runs away from New York to live in a mountain wilderness. By himself.
With only a penknife, a ball of cord, an ax, $40 and some flint and steel, he must rely on his ingenuity and on the resources of the land to survive. I sighed. Without even skimming it (which was absolutely all I was going to do anyway), I knew this kid would experience extreme hardship. He would be cold and hungry. But he would also be bravely, unbelievably resilient and resourceful. And by the book’s end, he would have tamed a herd of reindeer or a team of bears or something, built himself a log cabin, written his memoir on tree bark with berry juice and cleared hundreds of acres of land to farm in the spring. Something like that.
I could not bear to read it.
“Hey, Mom, Dad,” I said, leaning forward between them, “ever hear of a book called My Side of the Mountain?”
“I loved that book!” said Dad instantly, swiveling around.
“Hey, hey, eyes on the road there, bro,” I said.
“That was one of my all-time childhood favorites!” Dad said, smiling at Mom.
I furtively checked the publication date. It really was that old.
“Really?” said Mom. “I mean, I liked that book, but I was more of a Lost in the Barrens kind of girl.”
This was promising. Two books I was supposed to read; two people who had read them.
“So tell me about them,” I said. “I mean, I’ve practically read both of them for Outdoor Ed, but I want to hear your opinions of them.”
“Well, both are survival stories, right?” said Mom. “But I guess in one the kid chooses to go and live in the wilderness, whereas in the other the two boys somehow get separated from their hunting party up north and have no choice but to survive the winter on their own.”
“Exactly,” I said, trying to sound knowledgeable. “The kids are out in the wilderness alone. And they survive by doing a whole bunch of things, like…” I trailed off invitingly.
“Well, Sam in My Side of the Mountain actually hollows out a tree to live in! Digs and burns out a house from a tree,” Dad said. He ran his hand over his short gray hair. “A huge tree. I always loved the sound of that. And he makes furniture, and he fishes and hunts. He makes a rabbit-lined deerskin suit. And he actually trains a falcon to hunt for him! A falcon!”
Did I predict this or what? These stories are always so unbelievable. A falcon. Riiiight.
“I seem to remember a lot of hunting in Lost in the Barrens too,” said Mom. “Our teacher kept pointing out how they used all the parts of the animals, but there sure was a whole lot of killing. Caribou, rabbit, bison. And what was the name of that food…oh, pemmican. Berries pounded with meat seemed to be sort of survival cuisine in that book.”
“They did other stuff too, right? Those two kids in the Barrens book were really creative,” I said encouragingly.
“Oh, it’s true. Unbelievable what those kids did. They ended up building igloos, storing enough food for the winter and making snowshoes and candles and stuff. The chapter where they fended off a grizzly bear was very exciting.”
Was it? Whatever. Why didn’t these kids just build a GPS out of wood and twine and get the heck out of there? I found it all highly, highly unbelievable.
“So if you had to compare and contrast the two books or the characters or, really, anything about them…” I invited.
Mom and Dad talked bleak survival stories (making thread from gut! Spearing fish with sharpened sticks! Blocking out wind from a self-built cabin with mud and moss!) while we drank our hot chocolate and ate the donuts from our last stop at the edge of civilization. They talked for a long time. I got more than enough information about both books. I felt confident I could discuss them like a pro without actually having to read either one of them.
After hearing that in My Side of the Mountain the kid’s dad only checks up on him six months later (at which time the kid makes a Christmas feast; yeah, that’s right—Christmas dinner), I had serious doubts about the book.
And when I heard the author had a daughter she actually named Twig, I refused to read it on principle.