My Side of the Mountain

By Jean Craighead George

Which of us did not want to “run away from home” at least once in our childhood?

This Newbery Award winning book published in 1959 speaks to that moment in almost all children’s lives when they crave independence and an opportunity to escape the cocoon of comfortable safety. With woodcraft and herb-lore worthy of a seasoned mountain man, Sam Gribley successfully tackles a full year in the forest with only some string, a hatchet, and superior level-headedness. Along the way, he finds the independence many young people crave, but he also finds that after a year of being alone he no longer needs to prove anything to himself or to anyone else. As a teacher, I feel that I am constantly being scrutinized and asked to evaluate and compare myself to others.

By example, Sam captures and trains a hawk to hunt for food, befriends mountain animals, and avoids human contact only miles from a small town. When finally visited by his father and a friend, he serves them onion soup in a turtle shell, blackened venison steak flanks, and fluffy mashed cattail tubers, mushrooms seasoned with dogtooth violet bulbs, smothered in gravy thickened with acorn flour. I’m not sure I could cook that much less eat it.

Told in straight-forward pragmatic language, Sam tells his story while including excerpts from his journal/cookbook. While detailing the hardships he overcame to survive in the forest, the reader is subtly reminded that the child is never far from a true rescue. He knows exactly where town is and visits the library when in need of lore. The child reader is left knowing there is no critical threat to Sam’s safety but is only “on his own” as long as Sam desires.

In the end, the story is less about a child running away from home (a dubious subject for a children’s story) and more about children’s desire to succeed, and the reward for parents who allow those opportunities to grow.

After thinkng about this story overnight, I realize that I would not have had the courage to allow our son to camp out in the forest alone. No way!