I started reading this book with my kids tonight. You can find a current (and inexpensive) printing of it here as well as many customer reviews.
I read this book for the first time probably around 1989/1990. I’ve reread it many times since then. I’ve gone so far as to push it on my kids, although none ever took a real interest. I decided tonight to start it, and lo and behold, all three listened with very few interruptions. I got through the authors preface and 25 pages before I called it a night and my nine year old told me he likes long books when he can listen to them. (which is funny only if you know him and know that he really does like to read on his own)
We learned about Sam Gribley’s first winter storm, and how he learned how to make a fire and caught fish and found his great-grandfathers nature-reclaimed farm.
My kids asked me to read more tomorrow night.
I have a hard time getting them interested in books I loved as a child. Perhaps due to some weird generation gap. Perhaps due to gender differences (I highly doubt this however). Perhaps it’s just that my kids have so much more going on electronically than I remember having and they just don’t read as much as I did. They certainly have an extensive library – full of my and my husbands beloved children’s books as well as brand new books. We can’t leave Barnes & Noble without dropping at least a hundred dollars. Books are definitely not in shortage around here. Yet, they seem to get left by the wayside and video games and the internet prevail.
I got off track there, sorry. I am super-excited to revisit this wonderful book with my kids and hopefully they will enjoy it as much as I remember enjoying it. A camping trip might have to be in the works once we finish it. I’ll let you know 
I’m a fairly suburban city girl at heart. I grew up in the burbs, but within fifteen minutes of a major city. The most “rustic” I ever really got was playing in the woods behind my house, which I suspect weren’t nearly as big as I thought they were and only divided our pre-planned neighborhood from some older houses on the other side. I went looking for a tree to live in though, just like Sam. My own children will have to make-do with their ready-built “tree” house that came with their swing set – South Florida isn’t really known for it’s old, or large trees. We’ve got Palm’s in the back yard. I loved the idea of running away to the woods as much as the main character of this book did though. A nice quiet, large, deserted forest still appeals to the curmudgeon in me.
Amazon.com Review
Every kid thinks about running away at one point or another; few get farther than the end of the block. Young Sam Gribley gets to the end of the block and keeps going–all the way to the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. There he sets up house in a huge hollowed-out tree, with a falcon and a weasel for companions and his wits as his tool for survival. In a spellbinding, touching, funny account, Sam learns to live off the land, and grows up a little in the process. Blizzards, hunters, loneliness, and fear all battle to drive Sam back to city life. But his desire for freedom, independence, and adventure is stronger. No reader will be immune to the compulsion to go right out and start whittling fishhooks and befriending raccoons.
