Part 1
The story opens deep in winter, with a boy named Sam Gribley snug inside a hollowed-out tree on a snowbound mountain, so well hidden that people pass without ever guessing he is there. Then Sam tells us how he came to be living alone in the wild. He is one of many children packed into a small, crowded New York City apartment, and he longs for space and independence. So he announces to his father that he is going to run away to the Catskill Mountains and live off the land on the abandoned farm that once belonged to his great-grandfather, a man named Gribley. His father, sure the boy will be back by nightfall, lets him go. Sam sets out with almost nothing — a penknife, a ball of cord, an ax, flint and steel to make fire, and forty dollars — and travels by train and by hitching rides up into the mountains. But the wilderness is not the easy adventure he imagined. On his first cold, hungry nights he cannot even get a fire started, and he is close to giving up when a kind stranger shows him the trick of striking sparks the right way. Humbled but determined, Sam realizes that surviving in the wild will take real skill, patience, and learning — and that he has everything to learn.
| Section | What you will practice |
|---|---|
| Vocabulary | Survival words: wilderness, independence, flint, kindle, determined… |
| Literary Elements | The frame opening, first-person voice, and a hero with everything to learn |
| Cross-Curricular | Wilderness survival — the first priorities that keep you alive |
| Ch. | What happens |
|---|---|
| Chapter 1 | Snug in the Tree — the book opens with Sam living inside a hollow tree in a snowstorm, safely hidden; then he begins the story of how he got there. |
| Chapters 2–3 | Leaving the City — Sam runs from his crowded NYC home to his great-grandfather’s Catskill farm with a few tools; unable to make fire, he learns his first hard lesson. |
Fire needs three things at once, and firecraft is mostly about supplying them in order. Chemists call the set the fire triangle: fuel, oxygen and enough heat to start the reaction. Beginners usually fail on fuel size. A flame cannot jump straight from a spark to a log, so woodsmen build in three grades — tinder fine enough to catch a spark, kindling no thicker than a pencil, and only then split wood. Dry standing deadwood burns far better than anything lying on damp ground, and the inner bark of birch will light even when wet because it holds natural oils. Friction methods work but demand practice and dry materials. What experienced campers stress is preparation: gather three times what you think you need and lay it within reach before striking anything, because a young fire dies in the seconds you spend hunting for more fuel.
ⓘ The vocabulary words in this list are selected to help you understand and complete this workbook. Some may not appear verbatim in the original novel.
The eastern American woods a runaway would meet today are not ancient. By the mid-1800s most of New York’s Catskill region had been cleared for farms, sheep pasture and hemlock bark, which tanneries stripped for the chemicals used in curing leather. When farming moved west and the tanneries closed, the fields were abandoned and the forest returned on its own — a process ecologists call succession. First come sun-loving weeds and grasses, then birch and aspen, then slower, shade-tolerant maple, beech and hemlock, which eventually crowd the pioneers out. Stone walls running through deep woods are the giveaway that a place was once open field. This history matters to anyone living off the land there, because a second-growth forest is thick with the young trees, berries and edge species that abundant sunlight creates, and offers far more food than a dark, undisturbed old-growth stand.
- Sam tells his father he will live off the land.
- He sets out with a knife, cord, ax, flint, and $40.
- He travels to the Catskill Mountains.
- Unable to make fire, he learns his first hard lesson.
- We glimpse Sam surviving winter in his tree home.
Writing a novel as a journal changes what the book can do. The form is called epistolary when built from letters and diary fiction when built from entries, and both create immediacy: the narrator does not yet know how things turn out, so suspense comes from a real uncertainty rather than a withheld one. The cost is that a diarist can only report what they have already survived, which quietly removes certain dangers. Writers work around this by varying the entries — long reflective passages beside hurried fragments — so the pace of the writing mirrors the pace of the life. A journal also permits ordinary practical detail that a conventional narrator would skip, and in a survival story that detail is the pleasure. Notice which days get many pages and which get a line, because the gaps are as deliberate as anything the narrator chose to write.
Psychologists separate two things ordinary speech confuses. Solitude is chosen time alone, and studies link it to recovery, concentration and creative work; loneliness is the distress of having less connection than you want, and it tracks with poor sleep and worse health. The difference is not the number of people nearby but whether the state was chosen and can be ended. Researchers who ask people to sit alone with no phone and no book find most report it as unpleasant at first and considerably better after several sessions, which suggests tolerance for one’s own company is a skill rather than a trait. Long-duration studies of polar crews and sailors add a warning: chosen isolation stays healthy while there is meaningful work and a date it ends. Take either away, and solitude begins turning into something the person no longer controls.
Think back over the opening. Snow falls on a mountain, and inside a hollow tree a boy sits warm and unseen, so at home in the wild that hikers pass within feet and never know. Then the tale rewinds: a crowded apartment, a restless boy, a father who shrugs and says go. And off he goes with a knife, a rope, an ax, a bit of flint, and forty dollars, sure he is ready — until the first freezing nights, when he cannot coax a single spark into flame and hunger gnaws and the great adventure suddenly feels like a mistake. A stranger’s kindness saves him, and the boy understands, at last, that the wild will not be conquered by wishing. It must be learned.
Sam’s desperate, fireless first nights are a lesson in what really keeps a person alive in the wild. Survival instructors often teach a simple memory aid called the ‘rule of threes.’ It says that, very roughly, a human can survive about three minutes without air, about three hours without shelter in harsh weather, about three days without water, and about three weeks without food. The exact times vary with the person and the conditions, but the ORDER is the important part, because it tells you what to worry about first.
Most beginners get that order exactly backward; like Sam, they imagine that finding FOOD will be the great challenge of living off the land. In truth, food is usually the LEAST urgent need; a healthy person can go a long time hungry. The real killer, and the fastest, is exposure — losing body heat in cold or wet conditions. That is why, after air, shelter and warmth come first, and why fire is so precious in the wilderness — fire warms the body, dries wet clothes, cooks food, purifies water, keeps animals away, and lifts a lonely person’s spirits. When Sam cannot make a fire, then, he is not merely uncomfortable; he is in genuine danger, facing the very threat that survival experts rank near the top. Jean Craighead George knew the outdoors well, and she signals from the first pages that this will be a realistic story — one where a boy’s life depends not on wishing, but on learning the true rules of the natural world.
This writing task is optional and is not part of your auto-graded score. The feedback below checks only the basics — length, spelling, and grammar — not whether your ideas are right or wrong. It is meant for classroom discussion and creative practice, so feel free to use your imagination!
Writing Task — Part 1 “Leaving the Familiar”
Sam leaves a crowded, familiar home for the unknown wild, chasing independence. Write about a time you wanted more independence or space, or stepped into something unfamiliar on purpose. What did you want, what did you do, and what surprised you? 6–10 sentences. End with what you learned about being ready for what you wished for.
No right or wrong — close the screen and tell someone nearby what happened in this part. Can’t find anyone? Tell yourself out loud. The moment you teach it, you truly understand it.
Part 1 Complete!
You finished Chapters 1–3 of My Side of the Mountain.
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Your writing was checked automatically for length, spelling, grammar, and whether you included the key parts of the scene. Scroll back to Part 5 anytime to read your feedback and improve your work.
Independent study guide by Garden Heights. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Jean Craighead George. Contains original analysis only; no text from the novel is reproduced. Reference text: This workbook follows Jean Craighead George’s classic text (the standard Puffin edition sold worldwide). Revised 2023 UK editions change some wording and may not match the vocabulary studied here.