my side of the mountain by jean craighead george

Within pages, the determined young Sam had left home for an ancestral farm in the Catskills, long abandoned by a grandfather. The whole family piled onto the couch and I launched into the story. We cracked the book after returning from our trip. I wanted to offer them a counterpoint - a look at the natural world that was far quieter and far less candy-colored. Not to mention, they’d been on a Wild Kratts jag recently. They practically vibrated with excitement. He and his 5-year-old brother were both aching to be in the woods, by the fire, in a tent. I was about to give my 7-year-old his first pocket knife. But it wasn’t until we were approaching our first camping trip as a family that I considered introducing my own boys to My Side of the Mountain.

And, in fact, the feeling was still there when I became a father to two boys of my own. Like the tree that Sam makes his home, the story hollowed me out and took up residence. The visions of Sam’s lonesome life in the woods stuck with me for a very long time. I could easily imagine the gorges and slopes that Sam navigated in his solitude, despite the fact that he was in the Catskills and I was in the Rockies. It didn’t hurt that I lived in Colorado at the time and had my own mountains close at hand. I remember that my elementary school teacher dimmed the lights and we all sat on the floor quietly thrilling to the idea of running away from home to live in a tree of our own. I must have been in 5th grade when I was first exposed to the quiet adventure of Jean Craighead George’s My Side of the Mountain.

My side of the mountain by jean craighead george