Brian's Winter: Week of 9/8/14

Title: Brian's Winter
Author: Gary Paulsen
Pages Read:0-67
Prompt: analyzing the impact imagery and figurative language have on the meaning and tone of your text.

     Imagery plays a large role in this book. The main reason being that this is a survival book that is in the middle of the woods. There has to be lots of imagery in order to set up the situation. For example there is a bear in one seen. The whole seen is understood by the reader through imagery. They have to describe the bear, the scene, and the bear's actions. The entire book has to basically be imagery, if not it will be hard for the reader to understand. The imagery that Gary Paulsen uses is not too hard to understand. The reason for this is because almost all the readers of his book don't have the best idea of how it is when you are surviving out in the wilderness. The imagery Gary Paulsen uses adds a sense of suspense and eagerness because he sets up the scenes so that you want to continue reading.
     In this book there isn't too much figurative language. He does use comparisons in his story though. He compares things from nature to real life things. Like when Brian is doing one of his necessities they will compare it to what he would use it in his normal life. For example he will compare certain animals that Brian catches to the meals he would eat in real life. Right now in the book Brian is preparing himself and realizing that the winter is coming. This is an add on to the first book, called Hatchet. In hatchet he is rescued, but this book is telling about what he would have went through had he not been rescued. At this point he has created habits in the wild and what he does on an every day basis. But then things begin to turn for worse.
     The winter is coming and Brian must gain more surviving skills. He realizes that all the animals are going to go away because they are going into hibernation. He realizes he will have to take out a large animal like a bear in order to have enough food for the winter. Unfortunately the bow and arrows he has right now are barely enough to kill a rabbit or bird. He is struggling with his bow because he nature is not cooperating with him. The temperature is dropping and you can sense the tension rising. I am eager to see how he survives through the cold winter. All he knows is surviving in the summer. Lets see what him and his instincts can do versus the coldness and bitterness of winter. This book is a little more basic than the books I should be reading at this point. I just wanted to begin to read survival books to see if I will get into it. So I decided to start with this book.