Gary Paulsen ( 1939 - )

His books frequently appear on the best books lists of the American Library Association.

His Life:

He found security and support from his grandmother and aunts, but he also found comfort in books. One day he went into the library to get out of the cold and the librarian offered him a library card. Even though he wasn't that good in school, Gary developed a passion for reading. He read constantly, even as much as a book a day.

Here is what Gary Paulsen says about getting the reading habit, "I was a miserable student. I flunked the ninth grade and finally graduated from high school with probably a D- average. I had a miserable home life, and I would sell newspapers to the drunks at the local bars to make a little money. One night I went into a library to get warm and the librarian asked me if I wanted a library card. Then she started giving me books--Westerns and science fiction and every once in a while she'd slip in a Melville. It saved me, it really did. And now I tell kids to read like a wolf eats."

He ran away at age 14 and traveled with a carnival. When Gary got older, he always had a busy summer, chores on the farm; jobs as an engineer, construction worker, ranch hand, truck driver, and sailor; and two rounds of the 1,800-mile Alaskan dog sled race, The Iditarod.

He knew he would be a writer as he was working as a satellite technician for an aerospace firm in California. One night he walked off the job, never to return, he spent the next year in Hollywood as a magazine proofreader, working on his own writing every night. Then he left California and drove to northern Minnesota where he rented a cabin on a lake; by the end of the winter, he had completed his first novel. He published his first book, Special War, in 1966.

His early career was very productive. He published nearly forty books over 200 articles and short stories. His career was interrupted by a lawsuit in 1977 over Winterkill. He won the lawsuit but at a high cost.

During that time he picked up the hobby of dog sledding which because the subject of some of his future works, like Dogsong. He later attended the University of Colorado in 1972.

He suffered a heart attack in 1990 which has reduced some of his physical activity. He continues "on the go" sledding, motorcycling and sailing. He and his wife Ruth who has illustrated some of his books live in La Luz, New Mexico and Minnesota.

His Books:

Since Gary Paulsen has written over 175 books, we can't list all of them. If your favorite is not included, just email to me or tell your Library Technician and it will be added. Thanks Enjoy

The book is about a boy whose parents died when he was little so he has to live with his grandparents on a farm. The boy and his grandfather always go deer hunting together every year. This year though they cannot go together because his grandpa has cancer. When the boy goes hunting he sees a deer and tracks it. Then he finds that he cannot kill it so then he thinks that if he could just touch it, it would heal his grandpa. Does it heal his grandpa? Does he even touch the deer?

Only Oogruk, the shaman who owns the last team of dogs in the village, understands Russel's longing for the old ways and the songs that celebrated them. But Oogruk cannot give Russel the answers he seeks; the old man can only prepare him for what he must do alone. Driven by a strange, powerful dream of a long-ago self and by a burning desire to find his own song, Russel takes Oogruk's dogs on an epic journey of self-discovery that will change his life forever.

From Publishers Weekly This Newbery Honor book is a dramatic, heart-stopping story of a boy who, following a plane crash in the Canadian wilderness, must learn to survive with only a hatchet and his own wits. The novel chronicles in gritty detail Brian's mistakes, setbacks, and small triumphs as, with the help of the hatchet, he manages to survive the 54 days alone in the wilderness. Paulsen effectively shows readers how Brian learns patience to watch, listen, and think before he acts as he attempts to build a fire, to fish and hunt, and to make his home under a rock overhang safe and comfortable.

Every day, 15yo Wil Neuton gets up, brushes his teeth, leaves the house, and rows away from shore. He's discovered the island, a place where he can go to be alone and learn to know nature--and himself.Wil's only mission is to let go of the outside world. But the outside world refuses to let go of him. His family regards him as a puzzle. The town bully is determined to challenge him. And suddenly, even reporters know his name. He can confront them all, or he can embrace his solitude forever. Just one thing is certain now: Wil Neuton will no longer be relying on anybody but himself.

Of the four rooms downstairs in the northern Minnesota farmhouse, the one that might be called a living room is where Wayne and Eldon, their parents and great-uncle, and old Norwegian Nels spend their winters. There the family sits near the corner wood stove and listens, uninterrupting, as Uncle David tells stories--of the old country, of old times, of a semi-mythical lumberjack. Eldon, the younger son, begins his own story, in spring, when everything is soft. While he describes for readers the farm activities of each season and narrates memorable pranks and milestones of his boyhood, it is the palpable awareness of place and character that is unforgettable.

This short, lyrical novel concerns a five-year-old boy who is sent to the north woods of Minnesota to live with his grandmother, a cook for a rough-and-tumble road-building crew, because his father is off fighting in World War II and his mother has taken a job in a factory. Paulsen's simply told story strikes extraordinary emotional chords, from the boy's wide-eyed wonder at the giant men and their giant machines, to his searing rage at his mother's new boyfriend (the real reason he's been packed off to the woods), to his profound love for his grandmother, to his aching loneliness for his mother.

"We want you to do it again." These words, spoken to Brian Robeson, will change his life. Two years earlier, Brian was stranded alone in the wilderness for fifty-four days with nothing but a small hatchet. Yet he survived. Now the government wants him to do it again -- to go back into the wilderness so that astronauts and the military can learn the survival techniques that kept Brian alive. This time he won't be alone: Derek Holtzer, a government psychologist, will accompany him to observe and take notes. But during a freak storm, Derek is hit by lightning and falls into a coma. Their radio transmitter is dead. Brian is afraid that Derek will die of dehydration unless he can get him to a doctor. His only hope is to build a raft and try to transport Derek a hundred miles down the river to a trading post -- if the map he has is accurate.

Imagine being beaten for learning to read, shackled and whipped for learning a few letters of the alphabet. Now, imagine a man brave enough to risk torture in order to teach others how to read; his name is Nightjohn, and he sneaks into the slave camps at night to teach other slaves how to read and write. Celebrated author Gary Paulsen writes a searing meditation on why the ability to read and write is radical, empowering , and so necessary to our freedom. These skills threaten our oppressors because they allow us to communicate--to learn the real status of our slavery and to seek liberation.

A young boy spends his tenth summer on his aunt and uncle's farm, where he is constantly involved in crazy escapades with his cousin Harris. "On the Larson farm, readers will experience hearts as large as farmers' appetites, humor as broad as the country landscape and adventures as wild as boyhood imaginations. All this adds up to a hearty helping of old-fashioned, rip-roaring entertainment."-

The Alaskan Iditarod is an annual 1180-mile dogsled race from Anchorage to Nome that generally takes two to three weeks to complete. Paulsen, a popular YA writer, ran the race in 1983 and 1985 and was again in training when a heart condition forced him to retire. This book is primarily an account of Paulsen's first Iditarod and its frequent life-threatening disasters, including wind so strong it blew his eyelids open and blinded his eyes with snow, cold so deep matches would not strike, and packages of lotions kept next to his skin that froze solid. However, the book is more than a tabulation of tribulations; it is a meditation on the extraordinary attraction this race holds for some men and women.

Fourteen-year-old Steven doesn't know what to think when his down-and-out dad, Corey, cynically proposes that they try their fortune as preachers. Swiping a Bible from a motel and equipping themselves with a huge old army tent, Corey and Steven set out for the road. Corey quickly discovers a knack for raising big collections from small-town believers, and the riches multiply when a couple of hustlers help them add faith-healing to the act. But when father and son finally pay attention to the Word they ostensibly spread, they are overtaken by a sudden surge of faith.

Paulsen explores the history of a flintlock rifle, meticulously describing the skill and artistry of gunsmith Cornish McManus as he spends months creating a gun both beautiful and "sweet" (meaning accurate). Using his usual spare style, Paulsen describes the rifle's use in the Revolutionary War and follows its story into the twentieth century, when it is exchanged by a scathingly depicted gun fanatic for an Elvis-on-velvet painting, and ultimately ends up killing a teenager, Richard, in a freak accident that occurs without human intervention. The omniscient narrator, details the events small and large (943 baseball games; finding a genetic cure for heart disease) that Richard missed by dying prematurely. Paulsen's message is clear and cutting: a machine made for killing, no matter how lovingly crafted and benignly kept, remains a machine made for killing.

In this sequel to his widely popular Hatchet (1987), he spells out an alternative ending many readers have tried to imagine: What if 13-year-old Brian hadn't been rescued before winter came? What if he had had to face the cold months alone in the Canadian north? This time Brian has a survival kit he found in the crashed plane (including two butane lighters, a rifle, a fishing line, and a sleeping bag), but otherwise he has to find food, shelter, and clothing from the world around him. He sees himself like the first Americans, learning to make arrowheads and snowshoes, getting to know the sounds and tracks and weather of his place in the wild.

Gary Paulsen has owned dozens of unforgettable and amazing dogs. In each chapter he tells the story of one special dog, among them Snowball, the puppy he owned as a boy in the Philippines; Ike, his mysterious hunting companion; Dirk, the grim protector; and Josh, one of the remarkable border collies working on Paulsen's ranch today. Pen-and-ink illustrations by Ruth Wright Paulsen.

Charley Goddard, 15, leaves his Minnesota farm to enlist in the Union army in 1861. An almost festive train ride to the South soon gives way to the harrowing realities of war. Paulsen pulls no punches, rendering the young man's experiences in matter-of-fact prose that accentuates the horror. The young man's quiet despair at the end of the book makes it clear that nothing good has come out of Charley's war.

The year is 2057. Endless wars have torn the USA apart and enslaved Americans to the CCR, the Confederation of Consolidated Republics. Growing up in the wasteland of war has made 14-year-old Cody Pierce wise in survival skills, and now he's the White Fox, rebel leader of the children's barracks in a CCR prison camp. Once he escapes, life with the underground teaches him new skills in weaponry and strategy as he plays cat-and-mouse with the CCR. Every day brings him closer to capture, as well as to his goal: to return and liberate the children he left behind.

In Guts Gary Paulsen reveals the stories behind Hatchet, as he lived them. Linked to specific incidents from Brian's ordeal are the skills and insights Paulsen learned as a teenager passionately in love with hunting in the north woods of Minnesota, the extremes of exhaustion and cold he knew in running the Iditarod dog races in Alaska, the chilling close-up knowledge of heart attacks from his experiences as a volunteer ambulance driver, the silence and majesty of the wilderness. Some great stories are told here: the child killed by two kicks from the razor-sharp hooves of a small deer, the difficulties of sharing a rescue helicopter ride with a terrified dog team, and some spectacular gross-outs about the nutritional need to eat every part of an animal.

In Brian's Hunt, the 16-year-old returns to the remote woods and lakes of Canada, where he encounters a mysteriously injured dog. His experiences two years earlier, after surviving a plane crash and months alone with only a hatchet to protect and provide for himself (Hatchet, Brian's Winter, etc.), have prepared him well to survive now. But can anything prime him for the horror that awaits him on an island campsite where he intends to meet his Cree friends?

A deer in his canoe, a bear attack, a leg stabbed with an arrowhead--it's just another week in the life of 16-year-old Brian Robeson. In his opinion, this beats a date at Mackey's Pizza Den, a fight with a bully, and a video game at the mall any day. After having survived a plane crash and 54 days in the Canadian wilderness several years earlier, Brian can't seem to fit into "civilization." The world of high school and family life makes no sense anymore. So Brian begins to plan. It's time to return to the woods. This time, though, he makes no plans to come back home.

A companion to Alida' s Song and The Cookcamp, Gary Paulsen's The Quilt spends another summer with "the boy" and his grandmother, Alida. World War II is being fought in Europe, and the boy's mother, working in a munitions factory in Chicago, sends her six-year-old son to stay with his grandmother in Minnesota. When Alida's neighbor Kristina goes into labor, Alida packs up the boy and goes to Kristina's farm to help. Mystified, the boy watches as other women arrive, water is boiled, and a quilt is brought out. Now it's time to listen, as the quilt--through the women--tells its stories about family, love, loss, and strength.

Seventh-grader Dorso Clayman has a problem in his futurist world. Every time he opens his locker, he finds something from another time or place. He's determined to find out who is messing with the time continuum before a woolly mammoth tramples him, he's shot with an arrow at Wounded Knee, or, worse, the time fiddlers destroy the world. Luckily, his best friend, Frank (who uses conventional time-travel opportunities to spy out naked women from history), is on his side, and together they can set things right. Paulsen writes with his usual skill, creating believable characters and moving the action along at a fairly fast pace,

Born into slavery, Bass Reeves became the most successful US Marshal of the Wild West. Many "heroic lawmen" of the Wild West, familiar to us through television and film, were actually violent scoundrels and outlaws themselves. But of all the sheriffs of the frontier, one man stands out as a true hero: Bass Reeves. He was the most successful Federal Marshal in the US in his day. True to the mythical code of the West, he never drew his gun first. He brought hundreds of fugitives to justice, was shot at countless times, and never hit. Bass Reeves was a black man, born into slavery. And though the laws of his country enslaved him and his mother, when he became a free man he served the law, with such courage and honor that he became a legend.

Used to being ignored, Terry, 14, is now alone. His parents have abandoned their marriage. Armed with a great set of tools, some experience with engines, and a detailed set of instructions, he works night and day on a kit car that his father had begun to assemble in the garage. When the little convertible is complete, he decides to drive from Cleveland to Oregon, where an uncle lives. He is joined by the Shakespeare-quoting Waylon, who is seeking shelter from the storm. The Vietnam vet convinces Terry to let him ride along, and later they are joined by Waylon's army buddy, who rides a Harley Davidson. This curious trio tours the West, encountering hostile rednecks, residents of a religious commune, and a history-teaching hermit, among others. Excluding several segments on engines, the action is brisk. Paulsen fans will enjoy the book; those with an interest in cars will love it.