This month's Kitchen Table pick is Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, read together a few chapters a night, with a question after each stop. Page count pending. A boy, a crash, a hatchet: the read-together that makes an 8 to 12 ask for one more chapter.
May 2026 pick. Last updated 19 August 2026.
Why this one
Paulsen writes short sentences about hard problems, which is exactly right for a kid who says they do not like reading. It also hands you the best kind of bedtime argument: what would you actually do first? Fire, water, or shelter. Nobody in the house agrees.
Brian gets one tool and no rescue. Ask your kid what they would do on night one, before you read night one.
Tonight's question
What is the first thing Brian does that you would not have thought of?
Open the kid's page in big type
The pace planner
Work out when you finish
Set your start date and your honest nightly minutes. It saves in this browser only.
- Per night
- 12 pages
- Per week
- 84 pages
- You finish
- Saturday, October 1025 nights, about 4 weeks
We have not verified a page count for this edition, so the planner starts from your own copy. Change the number to match the book in your hand.
How long will it take at twenty minutes a night?
Page count pending for the edition we link, so we are not guessing the number of nights. at a modest pace, and the sheet's first question never depends on the ending. The twenty minutes a night system.
The discussion sheet
Dad's Book Club
Discussion sheet
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
The Kitchen Table. May 2026.
If you only ask one
What is the first thing Brian does that you would not have thought of?
- Night one, chapters 1 to 3. Brian is carrying a secret about his family when the plane goes down. Why is that harder to carry than the crash?
- Night two, chapters 4 to 6. He learns that feeling sorry for himself does not get him food. Is that a fair rule, or a hard one?
- Night three, chapters 7 to 9. The porcupine teaches him about pain. What is something you only learned by getting it wrong?
- Night four, chapters 10 to 12. He makes fire and calls it his friend. Why does having one thing that works change everything?
- Night five, chapters 13 to 15. Brian starts noticing everything in the woods. What do you notice that most people walk right past?
- Night six, chapters 16 to 18. The moose and the tornado undo his work in one day. What do you do when you have to start over?
- Night seven, chapters 19 to the end. He almost misses the rescue because he has changed. How is the Brian at the end different from the one on the plane?
- The hatchet is a gift from his mother, who he is angry at. Can something good come from someone you are upset with?
- If you had to pick one tool to have with you in the woods, what would you take, and what would you give up?
dadsbookclub.com · May 2026
If you liked this
Shoe Dog
Phil Knight · The Shelf
The same month on the shelf, sized for you. A memoir about betting the house that is honest about the bill the family paid.
What to read after it
The River by Gary Paulsen
For the kid who finished Hatchet and asked what happened next.
My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
For the kid who liked the woods more than the crash.
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