My Side of the Mountain

My Side of the Mountain

First edition cover of My Side of the Mountain
Author	Jean Craighead George
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Mountain
Genre	Children's adventure novel
Publisher	E. P. Dutton
Publication date	1959
Media type	Print (hardcover and paperback), audiobook, e-book
Pages	178
Followed by	On the Far Side of the Mountain

My Side of the Mountain is a children or young adult adventure novel written and illustrated by American writer Jean Craighead George published by E. P. Dutton in 1959. It features a boy who learns about courage, independence, and the need for companionship while attempting to live in a forested area of New York state. In 1960, it was one of three Newbery Medal Honor Books (runners-up) and in 1969 it was loosely adapted as a film of the same name. George continued the story in print, decades later.

The book is about Sam Gribley, a 15-year-old boy who intensely dislikes living in his parents' cramped New York City apartment with his eight brothers and sisters. He decides to run away to his great-grandfather's abandoned farm in the Catskill Mountains to live in the wilderness. The reader meets Frightful, Sam's pet peregrine falcon, and The Baron, a weasel that Sam befriends. Roughly the first 80 percent of the novel is Sam's reminiscences during a snowstorm about how he came to be in a home made out of a hollowed-out tree, while the remainder of the novel is a traditional linear narrative about what happens after the snowstorm.

The second chapter opens with Sam Gribley remembering how he came to dislike living in New York City; how he learned of his grandfather's abandoned farm near Delhi, New York; how he learned wilderness survival skills by reading a book at the New York City Public Library; and about his trip to the small town of Delhi using $40 he earned by selling magazine subscriptions. Realizing his son will run away from home no matter what he does, Sam's father permits him to go to Delhi as long as Sam lets people in the town know that he is staying at the farm. Sam enters the forest near the town, builds a tent out of hemlock evergreen tree branches, and catches five trout in a nearby stream. But his survival skills are incomplete, and he is unable to build a fire. The next day, Sam searches for his grandfather's farm and fails to find it. However, he does meet Bill, a man living in a cabin in the woods. Bill teaches him how to make a fire. Sam is forced to go into town to learn where his grandfather's land is. He tells the local librarian who he is and where he is going, then journeys to the farm. Sam discovers the stone foundation for the long-destroyed farmhouse, but little else remains of the homestead.