“Read like a wolf eats.”

I had to do a Reaslistic Fiction assignment for my YA class -- 

I chose to write about Gary Paulsen! 

 “Read like a wolf eats.”

Gary Paulsen is one of my favorite authors.  

 The following is a quote about him from the website below,

 “It is Paulsen's overwhelming belief in young people that drives him to write. His intense desire to tap deeply into the human spirit and to encourage readers to observe and care about the world around them has brought him both enormous popularity with young people and critical acclaim from the children's book community.”

This is his website at Random House, one of his publishers http://www.randomhouse.com/features/garypaulsen/  This site includes a biography of Paulsen and talks about some of his books.  It looks like the last time it was updated was in 2004 so not all of the information is current.

If you hop over to http://www.randomhousekids.com/authors-illustrators/detail/2#.UiAN7T-ur3U the information is more up to date.  It has his upcoming book  “Family Ties” listed, along with his two most recently published titles, “Vote” and “Road Trip”.  He wrote “Road Trip” with his son, Jim.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7ADtOjxmRs is a YouTube video where Gary talks about why he writes, and encourages kids to, “Read like a wolf eats.”  

Gary Paulsen is probably best known for his book “Hatchet” which deals with a thirteen year old boy named Brian.  The son of divorced parents, Brian is traveling in a Cessna 406 bush plane to visit his father in the oil fields in northern Canada for the summer.  While flying over the wilderness, the pilot suffers a heart attack and dies. Brian tries to land the plane, but ends up crash-landing into a lake in the forest.  The story is how Brian manages to survive in the Canadian wilderness for an entire summer. The title comes from the hatchet his mother gave him as he was leaving to see his father.  Paulsen continued the story of Brian with four more novels.  Highly recommended for ages 12 and up.  Younger kids read it but I think they get more out of it if they wait until they are 12.  Katniss must have read this one - that’s how she managed to survive in “The Hunger Games”. 

However, my favorite Gary Paulsen book is “Harris and Me”.  It is the story of a young boy who is carted off to different relatives each summer by his alcoholic parents. The summer he is 11, he goes to live with his cousins on a farm in Minnesota, pretty much in the middle of nowhere.  His 9 year old cousin is named Harris.  The boy (never named in the book but it’s based on Gary’s life growing up) and Harris have some amazing adventures over the summer.  It is laugh out loud funny.  It was written in 1993 but takes place in the 1940s or early 1950s.  Again, I would highly recommend it for ages twelve and older - especially boys.  

Gary has written over 175 books and is a very diverse writer - the Brian stories are definitely realistic fiction.  Some of his realistic fiction is humorous; some very serious and autobiographical works, science fiction and historical fiction.  I would also recommend “Road Trip” - one of his most recent books which he wrote with his son - for middle school/early high school  It’s short and would appeal to boys and anyone that loves dogs.