Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
Young Adult Classics
ISBN: 0-679-42850-x
224 pp.
Suitable for 15+

Reader's Annotation: Recently graduated from college, Chris McCandless throws away all his money and goes on a two year journey traveling North America.

Plot Summary: Chris McCandless graduated in 990 with high scores from Emory University. His future looked bright, he was very intelligent, had a unique charismatic personality, but he didn't want to have a normal life. He wanted to live free. He ceased communication with his family and began on a two year journey all around North America. He went by the alias Alexander Supertramp as if he wanted to start a new life and go out with the old. His adventures included being in a thunderstorm/flood in the Mohave Desert, canoeing down the Colorado River, setting up residence in South Dakota laboring in a grain elevator, and living near the Salton Sea, among other journey's. From all his visits, he met colorful characters that he would make his new family. His main goal, however, was to journey up to Alaska and live his dream of living of the land and being completely free. This would be his most challenging journey yet.

Critical Evaluation: The book splits between McCandless' diary entries and the author's narration that shows both what the author thinks and what's going on inside of McCandless' head. Most of the books content focuses on McCandless' story, but the author also share's some of his experiences to parallel with McCandless, which adds an extra interesting element. This element is important because the author is able to relate to McCandless, something that no one in the book could do. In a way, this book is about youth rebellion but instead of drugs, sex, and rock n roll, McCandless, a free spirit, decides to be completely free not living by societies ways. Also amazing is the number of people he touches on his journey. But those people also speak of him in a negative light, stating that he is naive, crazy, and over-confident. Though his journey's are interesting, it's the objectivity of his character, interviews of people who knew him vs his own diaries that shows no matter how intelligent a person may be from a well-to-do background, youth, rebellion, and emotion take precedence in any young person's life; McCandless just did it in his own way.

Author: Jon Krakauer was born in 1954. He is an American writer, and more interestingly, a mountaineer. He has done numerous climbs, but he is most famous of his 1996 climb of Mount Everest, which became known as the Mount Everest Disaster, where members of his team perished in a snow storm. He has also written for a number of magazines, including Rolling Stone, Natural Geographic, and Architectural Digest.

Not surprisingly, his number one-best sellers were his works where he was able to implement his mountaineering experiences. These include Into the Wild and Into Thin Air. As of late, Krakauer edits the Exploration Series of the Modern Library. He currently lives in Boulder, Colorado with his wife, a former mountain climber.

Booktalking Ideas:
1) Starvation
2) Society
3) Hunting
4) Traveling
5) Family Communication

Challenge Issues: There are no challenge issues present in the book.

Why Included: I love traveling and though I don't have the guts, I sort of wished that I was able to live through some of McCandless' journey's in his free-spirit approach. I also like how many people McCandless touched on his journey's not to mention his diary entries, which were very intriguing.