Dylan Bartow

The jungle of Papua New Guinea, or PNG, is so dense it would take a healthy man with a machete a week to travel three miles. It took Dylan Barstow’s grandfather two weeks to be found by villagers after an airplane crash by the Sepik River, on the north side of PNG. Dylan was shipped off to his uncle’s house and forced to go on the expedition to find the lost wreckage of his grandfather’s WWII bomber, Second Ace, during the summer. This was punishment for having been caught on a joyride, in a stolen car, inside a junkyard within Wisconsin. Soon after staying in Uncle Todd’s condo in Oregon for a few weeks, the duo traveled to Port Moresby in PNG and meet up with the rest of their backpacking companions to initiate their hunt for the lost plane. However, throughout the events of this book, Dylan changes from the disrespectful, self-centered, jerk he

His house had a porch with the roof right under his room and aided in his sneaking out. Because of this, he was able to sneak out and might have been caught and stopped from completing stupid actions. “He eased his window open and crawled out onto the porch roof. … he carefully tiptoed down the shingles and over to where a big maple tree grew near the gutter spout.” ( Mikaelsen 7) . This quote illustrates how easily Dylan could sneak out of his house without his mother knowing, and developed his character. If there had not been a junkyard in the vicinity of Dylan’s house, he would not have committed grand theft auto. “A freshly plowed field surrounded the junkyard, looking like a moonscape in the dim light” (8) . This field was adjacent to the junkyard where Dylan stole his first car and sent to a detention center. Because this field was there, Dylan had somewhere to drive the stolen car, and had something else to destroy. In conclusion, Dylan living in Wisconsin profoundly influenced his growth and development as a character in Jungle of