Gary Paulsen (1939–2021) wrote more than 200 books for children and adults. Hatchet, Dogsong, and The Winter Room were Newbery Honor books, and the American Library Association presented him with the 1997 Margaret A. Edwards Award for his contribution to young adult literature. His work often centers wilderness, survival, and coming of age.
Titles6
Editions10
Adaptations1
Media6
Years covered1983–1990
Works on Favedom.com
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Dancing Carl, Gary Paulsen's first novel, was a ALA Best Book for Young Adults and a Notable Children's Trade Book for the Language Arts. In the winter, life in McKinley, Minnesota, revolves around the rinks, where kids play hockey and grown-ups skate to scratchy phonograph records. Then, the year Marsh and his best friend, Willy, are twelve, Carl appears at the rink, wearing a battered, old leather flight jacket and doing a strange dance that is both beautiful and disturbing to watch. It is Marsh and Willy who discover the terrible secret behind Carl's dance, a secret that threatens to destroy him. But a small miracle occurs, and Carl's dance becomes a fragile and tentative expression of hope and the healing power of love.
Celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the Newbery Honor–winning survival novel Hatchet with a pocket-sized edition perfect for travelers to take along on their own adventures. This special anniversary edition includes a new introduction and commentary by author Gary Paulsen, pen-and-ink illustrations by Drew Willis, and a water resistant cover. Hatchet has also been nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read. Thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson, haunted by his secret knowledge of his mother’s infidelity, is traveling by single-engine plane to visit his father for the first time since the divorce. When the plane crashes, killing the pilot, the sole survivor is Brian. He is alone in the Canadian wilderness with nothing but his clothing, a tattered windbreaker, and the hatchet his mother had given him as a present. At first consumed by despair and self-pity, Brian slowly learns survival skills—how to make a shelter for himself, how to hunt and fish and forage for food, how to make a fire—and even finds the courage to start over from scratch when a tornado ravages his campsite. When Brian is finally rescued after fifty-four days in the wild, he emerges from his ordeal with new patience and maturity, and a greater understanding of himself and his parents.
Fourteen-year-old Manny, a street kid fighting for survival in a Mexican border town, develops a strange friendship with an emotionally disturbed American soldier who decides to help him get across the border.
A Newbery Honor Book by the New York Times–bestselling author of Northwind. "A compelling description of farming in a bygone time." — Publishers Weekly ALA/YALSA Best Book for Young Adults ALA Notable Book for Children Judy Lopez Memorial Award for Children's Literature Following the turn of the seasons, eleven-year-old Eldon traces the daily routines of his life on a farm and his relationship with his older brother Wayne. During the winter, with little work to be done on the farm, Eldon and Wayne spend the quiet hours with their family, listening to their Uncle David's stories. But Eldon soon learns that, although he has lived on the same farm, in the same house with his uncle for eleven springs, summers, and winters, he hardly knows him. "It is the palpable awareness of place and character that is unforgettable. Paulsen, with a simple intensity, brings to consciousness the texture, the smells, the light and shadows of each distinct season. He has penned a mood poem in prose." — School Library Journal "More a prose poem than a novel, this beautifully written evocation of a Minnesota farm perhaps 40 years ago consists of portraits of each of the four seasons, along with four brief stories told by old Uncle David." — Kirkus Reviews
A LIFE AS EXCITING AS FICTION Gary Paulsen, three-time Newbery Honor author, is no stranger to adventure. He has flown off the back of a dogsled and down a frozen waterfall to near disaster, and waited for a giant bear to seal his fate with one slap of a claw. He has led a team of sled dogs toward the Alaskan Mountain Range in an Iditarod -- the grueling, 1,180-mile dogsled race -- hallucinating from lack of sleep, but he determined to finish. Here, in vivid detail, Paulsen recounts several of the remarkable experiences that shaped his life and inspired his award-winning writing. A School Library Journal Best Book A Booklist Editors' Choice
Two boys, separated by the canyons of time and two vastly different cultures, face the challenges by which they will become men. Coyote Runs, an Apache boy, takes part in his first raid. But he is to be a man for only a short time. More than a hundred years later, while camping near Dog Canyon, 15-year-old Brennan Cole becomes obsessed with a skull that he finds, pierced by a bullet. He learns that it is the skull of an Apache boy executed by soldiers in 1864. A mystical link joins Brennan and Coyote Runs, and Brennan knows that neither boy will find peace until Coyote Runs' skull is carried back to an ancient sacred place. In a grueling journey through the canyon to return the skull, Brennan confronts the challenge of his life.