Brian's Hunt by Gary Paulsen

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Brian's Hunt
by Gary Paulsen
(Audio)

So, this is the book Gary Paulsen swore he wasn't going to write. And, at the end, he apologizes for that and says the readers wanted to read more. Like Paulsen, I'm not usually able to know when to stop. He should have stopped at three. But, hey, I wanted to finish this up and find out what was worth another book.

Brian's out in the wilderness still, doing his thing and planning to stay away from civilization forever (what are his parents feeling about this, poor things!). He's living more of a nomaid life, moving around from place to place every few days via canoe. I sort of missed him having a camp he can call a home. But it's interesting, all the same. He sees new things--new fish, new food sources, new people, new parts of nature.

One night, he finds a wounded dog. He patches it up and takes care of it. Then he takes the dog with him on the river so he can figure out where the dog might have come from and why a dog would run away from its home (it's pretty darn obvious, I've got to say, but it takes clever Brian an inordinate amount of time to figure it out).

He finds the dog's owners who are, of course, dead. They also happen to be his Cree friends he mentioned several times at the beginning of the book, to refresh our memories about them. Also not remotely a surprise plot-wise. It turns out there's a mean bear. And does brian let the authorities deal with it? No, because he's suddenly turned into some sort of amazing, vengeful hunter. Huh. That's weird. I had a hard time buying it. Sure, a bear killing his friends is bad, but the bear didn't really know any better. It seemed strange for Brian to be so in-tune with nature and then to suddenly go seeking it out to destroy a part of it.

I certainly didn't mind the idea of the bear being so mean, which is what Paulsen seemed worried about in his closing note. Bears are definitely not cute and cuddley things; they're beings of nature.

I liked this book far more than Brian's Return, but I'm happy to say goodbye to Brian and his adventures. I wish him good luck and a good time out there in the winderness he loves so much :-)