<Ul> <Li> Children's literature portal </Li> </Ul> <Li> Children's literature portal </Li> <P> My Side of the Mountain is a children or young adult adventure novel written and illustrated by American writer Jean Craighead George published by E.P. Dutton in 1959 . It features a boy who learns about courage, independence, and the need for companionship while attempting to live in a forested area of New York state . In 1960, it was one of three Newbery Medal Honor Books (runners - up) and in 1969 it was loosely adapted as a film of the same name . George continued the story in print, decades later . </P> <P> The book is about Sam Gribley, a 15 - year - old boy who intensely dislikes living in his parents' cramped New York City apartment with his eight brothers and sisters . He decides to run away to his great - grandfather's abandoned farm in the Catskill Mountains to live in the wilderness . The reader meets Frightful, Sam's pet peregrine falcon, and The Baron, a weasel that Sam befriends . Roughly the first 80 percent of the novel is Sam's reminiscences during a snowstorm about how he came to be in a home made out of a hollowed - out tree, while the remainder of the novel is a traditional linear narrative about what happens after the snowstorm . </P>

Where does my side of the mountain take place