Good summary in the Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatchet_(novel)

Some description in this report:

I liked Brian because I thought he was very resourceful and coped well with being alone. He showed tremendous bravery and determination. I thought that he was very clever and had a lot of luck in the story. Gary Paulson made me care about Brian.

http://www.k-d-i-evans.demon.co.uk/ibkr47.htm

Detailed character analysis here:

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/hatchet/canalysis.html

If this or another answer here proves helpful in your research, you can encourage good answers by choosing one answer as the “best answer.”

Cheers,

Bruce

Brian In Hatchet

a message that came to me through this book is that you have to think about wats around you. Brain i would say is a brave young man and kind of lucky to have the hatchet with him and to have had that porcupine attack him causing him to throw the hactet agaist the rock to make sparks wich = fire. with the fire brain kept off the masquitoes and cooked his food. either way you have to be smart to do what brain did. He anylazed his surrundings and found out what he needed to survive and in the other books the experince brain had makes go back to the wilderness and live there and also get him busted for beating up a kid. There are also spin offs to hatchet like (check sources). Now one thing i have to say is that brains mom is kind of worried now that brain has gone to wilderness survived and now wants to go back. i think she’s a great mom. The dad i don’t really know what to say except that he’s one of the factors brain got to survive in the wilderness. I mean if there parents didn’t get divorced then he wouldn’t have been on the plane that crashed and stuff.

Here is a complete free online study guide for Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. It has all of that information.

http://thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Hatchet_Paulsen/Hatchet_Study_Guide01.html

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/hatchet/section1.html