Let The Young Fellas Read ‘Hatchet’

Being happily soon-to-be-married, I’ve made an effort to stay above the fray of the ever-simmering gender war in the online discourse. It makes men hate women and women hate men, and it is generally poisonous to our society, which has enough ills as it is.

Alas, I got sucked into the battle this weekend when I came across an X post about “Hatchet,” the iconic young adult fiction novel in which 13-year-old Brian survives a plane crash in the wilderness and has to survive for nearly two months until his rescue. Netflix is adapting “Hatchet” into a movie, and that’s apparently made some people mad.

A reporter I’ve never heard of named Katie Campione, whom I genuinely feel bad for and thus won’t be mean to, went semi-viral with the following take: “It’s not about if boys want to read Hatchet. First of all, school reading lists are dominated by male authors and protagonists. Second of all, it’s the presenting books in a gendered binary that is the problem. Maybe your son could stand to read some romantasy idk!!!!”

I responded to Katie and got some traction of my own by pointing out that this is an exclusively white, liberal, and, critically, female phenomenon: No man, even the most liberal, effeminate, or even “queer,” has ever lamented that young girls don’t read enough military history or train books (or in my case, military train history books). It’s only women who seem to want to bend young boys into the opposite gender, and I believe it’s because those particular women have a pathological hatred of men.

Katie isn’t the only woman with Hatchet Derangement Syndrome. Luke Winkie won the husband of the year award by sharing that his wife thinks “Hatchet” is a “way to reach the hearts and minds of would-be incels” via a “story about a kid finding self-actualization with a weapon.” What a wicked thing to say about young boys.

The reality is that the publishing industry has followed in the footsteps of the education system and become almost entirely feminized. Schools cater to girls, and so do the books kids read in them. The very same professional elites who complain about a crisis of illiteracy, particularly among men, are making it happen.

I decided to examine Katie’s claim about school reading lists being dominated by male authors and protagonists. In a shocking twist, it’s complete bull. The American Library Association’s 2026 Summer Reading List for grades 6-8, prime “Hatchet” years, contains 20 titles. Of those, 14 are fiction and six nonfiction. In those 14 fiction titles, there are nine female protagonists, four male protagonists, and one “non-binary.” One of those four male protagonists is transgender-identifying, so make it three, in reality. Among the authors of those 14 fiction titles, not a single one is a straight, white, biological male. There are two transgender-identifying female authors and a “non-binary” one, and the remaining two are nonwhite.

And believe it or not, these non-men aren’t writing books that sound particularly appealing to boys: “Scarlet Morning” is a pirate fantasy novel. The protagonist of “A World Worth Saving” identifies as transgender. “Speak Up, Santiago!” is about a young boy feeling out of touch with the “Latine” community in New York because his Spanish isn’t good enough.

There is one World War II title on the list! Maybe it’ll be a classic boy story!

“THE TEACHER OF NOMAD LAND: A WORLD WAR II STORY: Orphaned siblings navigate the perilous landscape of neutral Iran as Axis and Allied forces converge there in 1941 in this poetic and gentle World War II story.”

Oh.

The reality is clear enough. Too many of the people teaching our young boys, and deciding what gets written for them, are women who hate men. Surely there are plenty of women who don’t hate men who could do it instead. Even better, maybe there are some men out there who could help out. Until then, let the young fellas read “Hatchet.” It’s about the only thing they have left.

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This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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