Will in Ms. Ludtke

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen

When Brian Robinson gets on a small bush plane to go see his father he doesn't know what he's in for. When he is about halfway there, flying over the "bush" (Canadian Wilderness) the pilot of the bush plane suffers a heart attack and dies. The plane plummets down into a lake, Brian survives and is left to fend for himself in the Canadian Wilderness with a small hatchet his mother had given him before he left. I think Hatchet won the Newbery Honor because it was very suspenseful and filled with action like when Brian's lungs were bursting underwater when he tried to swim into the underwater wreckage to recover the emergency survival kit.