Sam leaves his crowded New York City apartment with minimal supplies to find his great-grandfather's abandoned farm.

Sam fails to make a fire on his first night in the Catskills and goes to bed cold, hungry, and miserable.

Bill, an older man, teaches Sam how to properly build a fire after Sam knocks on his door seeking help.

Sam visits the library in Delhi, where Miss Turner finds the Gribley farm on old maps and draws him directions.

Sam locates the Gribley property and cooks his first solo meal of catfish over a fire he built himself.

Sam hollows out a giant hemlock tree to create a comfortable tree house home on the Gribley property.

Sam climbs a cliff, withstands attacks from a mother falcon, and steals a nestling he names Frightful.

Sam overhears a hunter's rifle shot, hides the dead deer, and steals it to enjoy his first venison meal.

Sam catches a second deer using a salt trap and spends weeks crafting a full deerskin suit and warm clothing.

Sam wakes a sleeping stranger, invites him for venison, and the two become fast friends—Sam calls him Bando.

Sam builds a clay fireplace and chimney inside his tree house to prepare for the coming winter.

Bando arrives on Christmas Eve and shows Sam three newspaper clippings about a wild boy living in the Catskills.

Sam's father arrives on Christmas Day, having tracked Sam down using the newspaper articles and the old woman's account.

Sam sees snow melting and deer foraging freely and begins to cry, overwhelmed that he has survived the winter.

Sam's father brings the entire Gribley family up to the farm to live permanently with Sam.

Sam Gribley leaves his crowded New York City apartment to find his great-grandfather's abandoned farm in the Catskill Mountains. After a miserable first night, Sam receives crucial help from a local man and a librarian, eventually locating the Gribley property and cooking his first solo meal. Sam builds a tree house home, captures and trains a peregrine falcon named Frightful, and grows skilled at hunting and living off the land. He befriends a lost English professor he calls Bando, builds a fireplace to prepare for winter, and successfully survives the harshest mountain cold. At Christmas, Bando arrives with newspaper stories about Sam, and Sam's own father tracks him down for a holiday visit. By spring Sam has proven he can survive alone, but the story ends when his father brings the entire family to live permanently at the Gribley farm.

Sam's journey from runaway to wilderness survivor.

Sam hops on a train and hitches rides with truckers into the Catskill Mountains to begin his adventure.

Sam whittles a fishing hook from twigs and eventually catches five small trout on his first day in the mountains.

Sam finds the crumbling foundation of the old Gribley farmhouse and begins mapping out the property's food sources.

Sam discovers giant old trees in a mountain meadow and decides to build his home inside one of them.

Sam realizes he can burn out the tree's interior with controlled fire, the way Native Americans hollowed out canoes.

An old lady forces Sam to fill her strawberry basket and begins marching him into town against his will.

Sam goes to the library to research falconry, and Miss Turner gives him a much-needed haircut using library scissors.

Sam spots a fire warden near his camp and is forced to spend several days hiding away from his tree house.

Sam finds The Baron Weasel caught in one of his traps, and the fearless weasel attacks him before marching off.

Sam trains Frightful with a lure until she swoops down and catches her first real bird—a sparrow—on her own.

Sam encounters a scrawny cross-eyed raccoon near camp and invites her inside his tree home, naming her Jessie Coon James.

Bando finds clay nearby and makes storage jars for Sam, then teaches Sam to carve willow whistles to play songs.

Sam throws a Halloween party for woodland animals that ends with wild creatures ransacking his tree house and winter food stores.

Sam ventures into town wearing his deerskin outfit and meets a boy named Tom Sidler inside a drugstore.

Sam develops severe nosebleeds during the harshest winter months and discovers that rabbit liver provides the missing Vitamin C.

Sam's adventure begins with a train ride into the Catskills, where he struggles to catch his first fish and later discovers the crumbling ruins of the old Gribley farmhouse. Key discoveries—finding a suitable giant tree for a home and inventing a fire-burning technique to hollow it out—show Sam growing resourceful from the start. Sam befriends a fearless weasel he names The Baron and a cross-eyed raccoon named Jessie Coon James, while patiently training his falcon Frightful to become a skilled huntress. Bando helps Sam stock up on supplies before departing for the summer, and a disastrous Halloween party teaches Sam a hard lesson about wild animals and boundaries. As winter tightens its grip, Sam treks into town and meets a boy named Tom Sidler, while the season's most brutal cold brings dangerous nosebleeds that Sam must cleverly solve to keep himself healthy.

The skills, companions, and setbacks that shaped Sam's survival.

Sam's father warns him that the land is no place for a Gribley before Sam sets off for the mountains.

After a miserable first night alone in the Catskills, Sam walks toward the nearest house and knocks on the door for help.

Sam writes a triumphant letter to Bill but cannot send it because he never learned the old man's last name.

While being marched toward town by an old woman, Sam spots a peregrine falcon and decides to capture and train one.

Sam realizes the fire warden cannot force him to leave and that he is free to settle anywhere on the mountain.

The Baron Weasel bites Sam's leg during a deer-trapping attempt, causing Sam to cry out and scare the deer away.

The Baron Weasel charges and chases off two hikers who unknowingly sit on his home boulder near Sam's camp.

Sam hears police sirens near his camp but, instead of hiding, feels a sudden urge to approach a sleeping stranger.

Bando says his goodbyes after their summer together, and Sam is left feeling deeply lonely for the first time.

Sam watches forest animals storing food and growing winter coats, and urgently begins making warm fur clothing for himself.

Frightful flies off and does not return to Sam's whistles, but eventually comes back having caught her own bird.

Sam's father leaves camp after the Christmas visit, deliberately taking a different route so no one can track him back to Sam.

Matt Spell approaches Sam in the woods and reveals he has come to find and write about the wild boy.

Sam hears the imagined voice of Frightful warn him that he revealed so much to Matt because he wanted to be found.

Sam's father begins building a permanent house structure on the Gribley farm, making clear the whole family intends to stay.

Sam's adventure is shaped from the very start by his father's discouraging warning and Sam's refusal to accept failure, evident when he swallows his pride and seeks help after his first dreadful night outdoors. A chance sighting of a falcon and a tense confrontation with a fire warden each force Sam to make defining choices about his independence and freedom. The Baron Weasel provides unexpected comic help throughout the summer, while Bando's departure after their time together reveals Sam's growing and undeniable need for human connection. Over winter Sam faces dangerous isolation, watches Frightful test her own independence, and receives a quietly protective farewell from his father after the Christmas visit. In spring Sam fails to truly deceive a young reporter named Matt Spell, and his own subconscious—voiced through Frightful—reveals he may have always wanted to be found, a truth confirmed when his father begins building a permanent family home on the farm.