Susie Anderson
Staff Writer
While young readers at Chautauqua can navigate their way to the lake, the library and home, during Week Five, they will learn to navigate through the Canadian and Adirondack wilderness in two different tales of survival, while early readers climb a mountain with a feathered family.
Middle school teachers Mary Kay Szwejbka and Charlotte Cohen will lead the CLSC Young Readers conversation at 12:15 p.m. today on the porch of the Literary Arts Center at Alumni Hall and discuss Gary Paulsen’s modern classic Hatchet and Nikki Shannon Smith’s Stranded. The early reader’s selection is Ann Marie Stephens’ Arithmechicks Explore More: A Math Story. Following the discussion, Play CHQ will host lawn activities.
In Paulsen’s Hatchet, 13 year-old Brian survives a plane crash, landing in the Canadian wilderness with a hatchet as his only tool. Bearing stress from home, Brian must build shelter, make fire and track down food, all while overcoming adversity and learning about himself in the process. In Smith’s Stranded, Ava hails from Manhattan but longs for the outdoors. Her dream comes true when a storm upends her vacation and leaves her to fend for herself in the Adirondack wilderness.
In a week themed “Innovation in Capitalism: How to Meet 21st-Century Challenges?,” Managing Director of Literary Arts Stephine Hunt said that she thought both novels reflect distinct approaches to unanticipated circumstances.
“(Stranded) talks in different layers about class privileges through Ava’s experience as a young Black girl lost in the woods. And I think Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet does that really subtly,” said Hunt.
Growing up in Oakland, California, Smith said Stranded reflected her own desires to immerse herself in nature while growing up in a city. The book goes beyond a reimagination of Paulsen’s survival story by drawing in a fresh narrative to the genre.
“Stranded is the book of my heart,” said Smith. “I really just love it.”
As Ava navigates the aftermath of the storm in an unknown wilderness, she draws upon courage and independence to survive.
“It’s a survival story, but then at its heart, it’s about a girl who just wants to prove to other people and to herself that she’s good enough just the way she is,” Smith said.
Highlighting young Black female characters, Smith pours care and consideration into her books.
“I feel like I get to share a part of myself that is somewhat vulnerable,” Smith said. “I get to share a part of Black culture that we don’t always get to see.”
Both Smith and Stephens bring decades of experience as teachers to their writing and their work at Chautauqua’s Young Writers Institute this week as writing coaches for the “Book-in-a-Day” program.
Stephens’ Arithmechicks Explore More: A Math Story follows the adventures of chicks and their duckling cousins on a hiking trip. When one of the ducklings leaves their stuffed animal behind, the whole group must work together to summit the mountain.
The book is one of a series of six math-related books from Stephens, who bears her own hesitations toward math. Through the books, Stephens said she wanted to make math approachable and accessible to young readers through storytelling.
“One of the goals was to show how we do these math skills in everyday life and how you can actually go out and emulate what the chicks are doing, but also have a story with heart,” Stephens said.
As the story follows the chicks up the trail while learning greater and less than symbols, the adventure proves educational and exciting. For Stephens’ local community, the learning did not stop on the page.
“Our local library system featured the book on their nature trail. … They put each book page spread in a kiosk along a hike in a nature trail,” Stephens said. “So I met with kids, and we read the book along a hike. We stopped and picked up fallen leaves and twigs and sticks and did ‘greater than and less than’ in nature.”
