Audience: Fourth grade and up (though younger kids can enjoy).
Plot: Tired of living in his family's cramped city apartment, Sam decides to run away to his family's deserted ancestral farm in the Catskill mountains and lives there alone for an entire year. He learns how to trap animals, makes a home inside a giant tree, and raises a hawk named Frightful to help him hunt, all while trying to avoid being found by civilization. It's pretty cool.
What makes it great?
This book is a classic. I read it with my family a long time ago, and it is still one of my brother's favorite books. Sam's story of survival is cool, but even cooler is the way he makes survival look fun and exciting. He builds a fireplace and makes all these gourmet meals with acorn pancakes with homemade jam--I hate to call Sam's wilderness survival "glamping," but it totally is. I think a lot of us just have this desire to live in the great outdoors, far from civilization, and while we probably won't ever do that, Sam does. Reading about his life makes us feel like we are living that dream too.
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