Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

And no, I’m not talking about George Eliot–that would be a whole different era. I realized the other night that in trying to think of other books by Jean Craighead George, I was instead coming up with books by Elizabeth George Speare. (I was clearly tired, but it explained why things weren’t sounding quite right in my head. And both writers have won multiple Newberys, which partly explains my confusion. I eventually got myself mentally organized.) At any rate, I read Jean Craighead George’s Julie books several years ago, but this week I finished My Side of the Mountain for the first time. It’s a bit like Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet, and then again a bit like Elizabeth George Speare’s The Sign of the Beaver, but it’s more relaxed than either book. Sam Gribley isn’t dealing with familial problems, particularly; he just wants to go live in the woods. And so he does.

In one sense, that’s pretty much the plot of the book. In another sense, however, My Side of the Mountain is part field and nature guide and partly a pondering on civilization, our dependence on modern conveniences, and just how remotely one wants to live. Of course, it’s also a boy’s fantasy come to life. (And maybe a girl’s–I just never had a desire to run off to the woods myself. Then again, I more or less lived in them already, and why give up modern conveniences when it would have meant less time to read? I was a hopeless bookworm.) Moreover, Sam certainly does a solid job of it, although some of his skills are more believable than others. (You can learn a lot of things in books, but sewing well by hand is a skill, and not a terribly common one among teenage boys–even in 1959.) Overall, it’s a leisurely and interesting story, in a highly informative kind of way. It reads, perhaps, more than a little like a daydream come to life. If such a daydream appeals, than the book will, too.*

*My apologies for what I feel is a rather weakly written review. I think some of my writing skills must be hibernating.