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| My Side of the Mountain (Puffin Modern Classics) | 
 enlarge | Author: Jean Craighead George
Publisher: Puffin Books
Category: Book
List Price: $6.99
Buy New: $2.75
You Save: $4.24 (61%)
Buy New/Used from $2.74
Avg. Customer Rating:  (509 reviews)
Sales Rank: 5966
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Reading Level: Ages 9-12
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 192
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 6.9 x 4.9 x 0.6
ISBN: 0142401110
EAN: 9780142401118
ASIN: 0142401110
Publication Date: April 12, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Terribly unhappy in his family?s crowded New York City apartment, Sam Gribley runs away to the solitude?and danger?of the mountains, where he finds a side of himself he never knew.
Amazon.com Review
Every kid thinks about running away at one point or another; few get farther than the end of the block. Young Sam Gribley gets to the end of the block and keeps going--all the way to the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. There he sets up house in a huge hollowed-out tree, with a falcon and a weasel for companions and his wits as his tool for survival. In a spellbinding, touching, funny account, Sam learns to live off the land, and grows up a little in the process. Blizzards, hunters, loneliness, and fear all battle to drive Sam back to city life. But his desire for freedom, independence, and adventure is stronger. No reader will be immune to the compulsion to go right out and start whittling fishhooks and befriending raccoons. Jean Craighead George, author of more than 80 children's books, including the Newbery Medal-winning Julie of the Wolves, created another prizewinner with My Side of the Mountain--a Newbery Honor Book, an ALA Notable Book, and a Hans Christian Andersen Award Honor Book. Astonishingly, she wrote its sequel, On the Far Side of the Mountain, 30 years later, and a decade after that penned the final book in the trilogy, Frightful's Mountain, told from the falcon's point of view. George has no doubt shaped generations of young readers with her outdoor adventures of the mind and spirit. (Ages 9 to 12) --Emilie Coulter
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| Customer Reviews: Read 504 more reviews...
 Every boy and tomboy should read it!! September 21, 2008
I absolutely loved this story as a child. I still love this story. However, I was one of the boys who planned to copy the character in this book. If I had I probably would have ended up being dead. That said, I enjoyed many wonderful hours as a fifth grader contemplating my GREAT ADVENTURE! I spent hours poring over atlases and planning just where in my state's forests that I would be living and building my home. I read numerous books on survival in wilderness conditions. I practiced with a fire bow and drill. I even cleaned & tanned a fresh roadkill raccoon and made a hat out of it. The time I spent with this story and the dreams this story inspired for me are some of my fondest childhood memories.
A child's introduction to Thoreau September 8, 2008
While "My Side of the Mountain" is not Henry Thoreau it does make an enjoyable read on how to live a self-sufficient life. Think of this as "Survivorman meets Jules Verne" and you have a nice idea of the general theme.
Many have complained that they do not understand the plot and that the action moves to slowly. Personally, I find the pace of the novel to be quite refreshing. What we are given is a story about how someone can learn to become one with nature. This process was nto immediate and it took time to develop so Jean Craighead George allowed the story to move at a natural pace.
I first read "My Side of the Mountain" about 20 years ago when I was still in grade school. Oddly enough, of the dozens of books that I read from that time of my life only "My Side of the Mountain" and "Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing" are the only ones that I actually remembered. It is pretty rare that you can find a book that you enjoy as much when you are 33 as you did when you were 11 years old.
"My Side of the Mountain" is written for children and adults alike. We all can dream about what life would be like on our own mountain. Maybe this isn't a book for everyone, but if you or your child enjoys camping, hiking, or just being outside this will probably become one of your own personal classics.
A trip into the wild May 11, 2008
This was a favorite of mine as a child, and even when I picked it up again for a reread I was blown away by the sheer majesty of nature that Ms. George manages to inject into this story. In the tradition of Thoreau (which is actually brought up in the story) we get to witness the bond between boy and nature when a city teen runs off into the Catskills. And why not? So many in our modern world are tragically bothered by the encrouchment of so-called civilized society. Our recent turn to Green culture echoed to me as I read this. Why wouldn't anyone in their right mind want to run away into the woods and live freely? Have a chance to discover themselves away from society's input? Who wouldn't just want to camp indefinitely for the sheer pleasure of it? Sam's character is incredibly believable--reminiscent of any fervant Boy Scout, and you appreciate his love of his new world as well as his attachment to the civilized world he had left, which is seen with his relationships with the select few citizens that find their ways to him in various mindsets: The college professor enchanted by his life, Sam's father who is torn by jealousy and his responsibilities as a working father, a local kid so blinded by soceity that he sees Sam's authentic dear clothing as fakes. But wow, they are all such wonderful characters that I don't care, and none of them can be considered bad, just examples of different people in the world. Ms. George has truly created a wonderful story, all themes aside. The descriptions are quietly beautiful and thoughtful, the characters understated and entertaining. Those looking for a fast-paced action-packed novel will not appreciate the quiet, observant story, but I enjoyed the journalistic pace of Sam's experience and the occasional extract from his notes. This is an amazing classic for anyone who appreciates the natural world. Trust me, it will make you want to run away to live in a tree.
A Can't Put Down Book October 20, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
When I first picked up this book,I just could not put it down! It's true there is no straightforward plot, but I really, really enjoyed it. After reading it(I also read the second book)I was more appreciative of nature and became very interested in trees and plants. I liked reading about what Sam did to live off the land. I wanted to run away and do the same! This was a spectacular book, yet I am still looking for a fictional survival book where the main character knows ABSOLUTELY nothing about surviving, and where he/she does not have luck as do many of the main charcters in other stories. But this was one of the best books I have ever read.
Sam Gribley got so lucky in this book October 6, 2007
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
I realize this book has already been anointed as a great children's book, and a great book for boys, but it doesn't mean I have to like it. My 14-year-old son loved this book when he read it in elementary school, and my 9-year-old daughter is loving it in fourth grade presently.
That being said, the people at Puffin dodged the issue of a child in the wilderness by making a cover where Sam looks like a teenager instead of the 11 or 12-year-old he looks like in Jean Craighead George's illustrations. There were numerous occasions in the book where Sam could have been seriously injured or killed, and George just blurbs or whooshes past them.
The back cover said Sam was terribly unhappy with living in New York City, but the book doesn't suggest that anywhere
I was impressed with the level of natural knowledge Sam possessed, and I was impressed that my children could come up with plausible ways that he acquired this knowledge. I considered the bit about hunger having an intelligence to be particularly clever.
Maybe the moral of the story is that as a parent, I could tell my kids without fear of contradiction that they are nowhere near as knowledgeable regarding the wild as Sam Gribley was, and that Sam was rather lucky in a few spots.
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