George, Jean Craighead. My Side of the Mountain. New York, Puffin Books, 1991.

Sam Gribley isn’t happy living in New York City, so he’s off to the Catskill Mountains, where he and his falcon, Frightful, will have to catch their own food, make their own fires, even make blankets and clothes for themselves, and just live off the land. Frightful catches the rabbits, and Sam cooks the food, catches fish, and makes blankets and clothes, as well. Sam’s whole family doubted him and assumed he’d be back the next day when he ran away, but he proved them wrong. Along the way, Sam will befriend new animals, even a school teacher who was lost in the woods, and show his dad how he lives on his own. At many different times in the story, though, there are hunters and other people who see him and report to local newspapers that there’s a boy living in the woods. This makes him even more cautious than he already is.

I would recommend My Side Of The Mountain, by Jean Craighead George, to anyone who likes a book about adventures and topics that aren’t very futuristic. A character that really stood out was Frightful, you’d think that she wouldn’t really produce or make as much of an impact on whether or not they stayed alive, but she did. Even though she’s just a bird, she is a huge help to Sam. I also really liked how everything in this story was told in Sam’s point-of-view and shared his thoughts and everything he was thinking and doing. Something I didn’t really like was that there wasn’t really a climax. The whole book was mostly just his daily life and nothing extremely interesting happened.