My Side of the Mountain

Summary

My Side of the Mountain is the first-person record of Sam Gribley, a boy of about twelve who leaves his family's crowded New York City apartment to live alone for a year in the Catskill Mountains. Sam had told his father he meant to go to the old Gribley farm, land his great-grandfather once worked near the town of Delhi, and his father laughed and let him try, sure he would be back by morning. Sam sets out in May with a penknife, a ball of cord, an ax, flint and steel, and forty dollars. His first night, cold and wet, he cannot make a fire and catches only a fish he cannot cook, and he learns quickly how little he knows. In Delhi the librarian, Miss Turner, helps him find old maps that locate the Gribley land and books on edible plants. On the mountain Sam chooses an enormous hemlock and burns and carves out its hollow trunk into a room with a bed, a clay fireplace and a deerskin door. He gathers acorns, cattail roots, wild greens and berries, fishes, traps, and learns to smoke and store meat. His boldest act is climbing to a falcon's nest on a cliff and taking a young peregrine, which he names Frightful and trains with jesses and a leash to hunt for him. He watches and names the animals around him: a fierce weasel he calls the Baron, and a raccoon, Jessie Coon James, who raids his stores. In summer a lost college English teacher stumbles on his camp; Sam first takes him for a fugitive and nicknames him Bando, and the two become friends, making blueberry jam before Bando leaves. Through the autumn hunting season Sam salvages deer left by hunters, tans their hides for clothing, and lays in food for winter. Winter brings deep snow, loneliness and a near disaster when smoke from his fire inside the sealed tree almost overcomes him, so that he cuts a vent. At Christmas Bando returns and Sam's father comes up the mountain to visit. By spring newspapers are printing rumours of a wild boy in the Catskills, and visitors begin to find him, among them a boy Sam calls Mr. Jacket and a young reporter, Matt Spell. The book ends when Sam's whole family arrives to stay, intending to build a house on the land, and Sam, who has begun to want company, accepts that his solitary year is over. George wrote and illustrated the novel with pen drawings of Sam's tools, traps and plants; E. P. Dutton published it in 1959, and it received a Newbery Honor in 1960.

Plot or Argument

• Snowbound in the tree (opening frame)

  Sam begins in winter, writing by firelight inside his hemlock during a snowstorm, and then goes back to tell how he came to the mountain.

• Leaving the city and finding the land

  Sam's departure in May, his miserable first night without fire, and Miss Turner's help at the Delhi library in locating the old Gribley farm.

• Making a home

  Sam burns out the great hemlock, builds a clay fireplace, and learns which plants, fish and small game can feed him.

• Frightful

  Sam climbs to a peregrine's nest, takes a young falcon, and trains her to hunt; the Baron weasel and Jessie Coon James become his neighbours.

• Bando's summer

  A lost English teacher wanders into Sam's camp; their friendship, talk, and blueberry jam.

• Autumn harvest

  Sam salvages deer during hunting season, tans hides for clothing, and stores nuts, roots and smoked meat for winter.

• Winter

  Snow, loneliness, the near suffocation inside the tree, and the Christmas visit of Bando and Sam's father.

• Discovery and homecoming

  Rumours of a wild boy bring Mr. Jacket and the reporter Matt Spell; in spring Sam's family arrives to settle on the land.

Characters

• Sam Gribley, narrator and protagonist

  City boy who lives alone for a year in the Catskills, recording what he learns.

• Frightful, peregrine falcon

  Young falcon Sam takes from a cliff nest and trains to hunt; his closest companion.

• The Baron, weasel

  Bold, quarrelsome weasel who lives near the tree and tests Sam's patience.

• Jessie Coon James, raccoon

  Thieving raccoon who raids Sam's food stores.

• Bando, college English teacher

  Lost hiker whom Sam first suspects of being a fugitive and who becomes his friend.

• Miss Turner, librarian in Delhi

  Helps Sam locate the Gribley land and find books on wild food.

• Sam's father, parent

  Lets Sam try his plan, visits at Christmas, and later brings the family to the mountain.

• Matt Spell, young reporter

  Newspaperman who tracks down the wild boy of the rumours.

• Mr. Jacket, boy visitor

  Local boy who stumbles on Sam's camp after the rumours spread.

Lessons

• Knowledge before courage

  Sam's first night on the mountain is a failure because wanting to live in the woods is not the same as knowing how. Everything that works for him later comes from patient study: library books, observation of animals, and trial and error with fire, traps and stored food.

  • What went wrong on Sam's first night, and what did he do the next day to fix it?
  • Why do you think Sam went to a library before he went to the woods?
  • What is one thing Sam learned only by watching an animal?

• Work makes a home

  The hemlock is only a tree until Sam burns, scrapes and furnishes it, and the winter is survivable only because he worked all autumn. The book shows that a home is something made with care and labour, season by season.

  • List the steps Sam took to turn the hemlock into a room. Which one was hardest?
  • How did Sam's work in the autumn decide what his winter would be like?

• Alone, but not meant to stay alone

  Sam goes to the mountain to be on his own, yet he names the animals, welcomes Bando, and is glad when his father climbs up at Christmas. By spring he finds he wants people again, and the family's arrival ends the story happily rather than as a defeat.

  • Why does Sam give names to the Baron and Jessie Coon James?
  • Was Sam happy or sad when his family arrived to stay? How can you tell?
  • What did Bando give Sam that Frightful could not?

• Taking and tending

  Sam lives by taking from the land: a falcon from its nest, fish, game and plants. He also cares for what he takes, training Frightful patiently and using every part of the deer he salvages, so his life on the mountain is both hunting and keeping.

  • How does Sam take care of Frightful once she is his?
  • Why does Sam use the deer hides as well as the meat?

Context

The novel appeared at the end of the 1950s, when most American children were growing up in cities and new suburbs, and it answered a long-standing American wish to test oneself against the wild, a tradition reaching back to Thoreau's Walden. Its Catskill setting, a few hours from New York City, made that wish seem possible for an ordinary city child. Falconry, which George knew from her brothers' work with hawks and falcons, gives the book its most memorable relationship.

Composition

George wrote and illustrated the book herself, drawing on childhood summers of camping, fishing and falconry with her naturalist family; her pen sketches of Sam's tools, traps and plants appear throughout. E. P. Dutton published it in 1959.

Reception

It received a Newbery Honor in 1960 and has been widely read in schools since. A film version followed in 1969. George returned to Sam and his falcon in On the Far Side of the Mountain (1990) and Frightful's Mountain (1999), and later wrote further books about Frightful's offspring.

Comparisons

• walden

  Sam's year in the woods is a child's version of Thoreau's experiment at Walden Pond, with the same interest in what a person truly needs, though Sam lives by hunting and foraging rather than beans and town visits.

• robinson-crusoe

  Both are first-person survival stories built from practical detail, shelter, food stores and tools, though Crusoe is cast away and Sam chooses his solitude.

• the-sign-of-the-beaver

  Matt Hallowell, also alone in the Maine woods, learns to survive from Attean and his grandfather; set beside Sam, who learns from books and animals, the two show different teachers of wilderness skill.

• the-swiss-family-robinson

  A tree home stands at the centre of both books, but the Robinsons build theirs as a family while Sam's is a solitary refuge that his family finally joins.

• where-the-red-fern-grows

  Both follow a boy's deep bond with an animal he has trained, Frightful for Sam and Old Dan and Little Ann for Billy, in the American backcountry.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The very first pages, where Sam writes from inside his tree during a snowstorm before going back to tell how he got there. Notice how this lets you know he survives.
• Sam's first night in the woods, when he cannot make a fire. Compare it with how he cooks and keeps warm later.
• Every time Sam gives an animal a name, such as Frightful, the Baron and Jessie Coon James. Ask what the names tell you about each animal and about Sam.
• The night smoke fills the hemlock in winter and what Sam does afterwards.
• Each new visitor who finds Sam, from Bando in summer to Matt Spell in spring, and how Sam feels about being found.

Key terms and names

Hemlock

A large evergreen tree. Sam burns out the inside of a huge, old hemlock to make his room, bed and fireplace.

Peregrine falcon

A swift hunting bird. Frightful is a peregrine that Sam takes from a cliff nest as a young bird and trains to catch food for him.

Jesses

Short leather straps tied to a falcon's legs so the falconer can hold her. Sam makes jesses for Frightful while training her.

Flint and steel

A stone and a piece of steel struck together to make sparks. It is one of the few things Sam brings, and learning to use it well takes him time.

Catskill Mountains

A range of wooded mountains in New York State, north-west of the city. The old Gribley farm lies there, near the town of Delhi.

Tanning

Treating an animal skin so it becomes soft leather. Sam tans deer hides to make clothes for the winter.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension What did Sam bring with him when he left New York City, and why did he go to the library in Delhi?
2. Comprehension How did Sam get Frightful, and how did he teach her to hunt?
3. Comprehension Who was Bando, and why did Sam give him that nickname?
4. Interpretation Sam is often alone, but he talks to Frightful and names the animals around him. Why do you think he does this?
5. Interpretation When the newspapers begin writing about a wild boy, how does Sam feel? Does he want to be found or not?
6. Interpretation At the end, Sam's family comes to live on the mountain. Is this a happy ending for Sam? Why?
7. Big Question God made people to live together, yet Sam learns many good things by being alone. What can a person learn by being alone, and what can a person learn only with others?

Faith Connections

• Job 39:26-29 (Scripture)

  God asks Job whether the hawk flies by Job's wisdom and the eagle builds its nest on the rock at his command. Sam climbs to a falcon's cliff nest and watches Frightful hunt, and the book is full of the same wonder at birds that no person designed.

• Matthew 6:26 (Scripture)

  Jesus points to the birds of the air, who do not sow or gather into barns, yet are fed. Sam, unlike the birds, must gather and store all autumn, but his year on the mountain shows how generously the woods provide.

• Genesis 2:15-18 (Scripture)

  Adam is set in the garden to work it and keep it, and then God says it is not good for the man to be alone. Sam works and keeps his piece of the mountain, and by the end he too is glad not to be alone.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: A boy who studies, works and watches carefully can live from the land through every season. Sam, by learning from books and animals and by working ahead of the winter, makes a real home in the woods. Yet even a successful life alone draws him toward other people, so his self-reliance is a stage of growing up, not the end of it.

Rhetorical device: frame narrative. The book opens with Sam writing inside his tree during a winter storm and then turns back to the day he left the city, so the reader knows from the first sentence that the plan has worked and reads to learn how.

Debate: Resolved: Sam's father was right to let him go to the mountain.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Choose three skills Sam learns on the mountain, such as making fire, training Frightful and storing food, and explain how each one helped him survive the winter.

Comparison with The Sign of the Beaver: Sam and Matt Hallowell both live alone in the woods. Compare who teaches each boy to survive and which boy you think learns more.

Medical Lens

The book has no physicians and no illness plot, but it is attentive to the body's needs in the wild. Sam's diet of foraged plants, fish and game is described closely, and the winter section turns on his struggle to keep fed and warm. The episode in which smoke from the fire inside the closed tree nearly overcomes him is a children's-book account of what would now be called carbon monoxide or smoke inhalation; the book treats it as a lesson in ventilation rather than a medical event. Any reading of Sam's late-winter cravings as a nutritional deficiency should be offered as an interpretation.

• Winter chapters

  Sam grows drowsy and nearly passes out from the fire's smoke in the sealed hemlock, then cuts a vent.
• Early and autumn chapters

  Sam's foraging, fishing and food storage, from his hungry first night to the stores he lays up for winter.

  Starvation Nutrition

Creative Prompts

• Fiction

  Write one page of Frightful's journal describing the day Sam took her from the nest and the first time she flew back to his fist.

• Classroom

  Make an illustrated field guide in Sam's style: draw five plants, tools or traps from the book and write a short note on how Sam used each one.

• Dialogue

  Write the conversation between Sam and his father on Christmas evening in the hemlock, when his father sees how Sam has been living.

• Essay

  Was Sam truly alone on his mountain? Use the animals, Miss Turner and Bando to argue your answer.

Further Reading

• On the Far Side of the Mountain, Jean Craighead George

  1990 sequel continuing Sam's life on the mountain.

• Frightful's Mountain, Jean Craighead George

  1999 sequel told largely from the falcon's point of view.

• Julie of the Wolves, Jean Craighead George

  George's 1973 Newbery Medal novel of survival in the Alaskan wilderness.

• Walden, Henry David Thoreau