His name is synonymous with
high-stakes wilderness survival stories, the first being Hatchett. Now,
beloved author Gary Paulsen portrays a series of life-altering moments from his
turbulent childhood as his own original survival story. The first sentence
of this autobiographical book sub-titled ‘The True Story of Growing up in the
Wild’, reads, ‘He was not literally an orphan, but he was a lost child.’ Paulsen
did not meet his soldier father until he was seven years old. Working in a
Chicago factory, his mother was caught up in a life of heaving drinking and
wild partying.
The memoir’s chapters are
titled ‘The Farm’, ‘The River’, ‘The Ship’, ‘Thirteen’ and ‘Soldier’ which
gives the reader an overall idea of the direction of Paulsen’s life. Writing in
third person, Paulsen proceeds to tell how, at the age of five, he escaped from
a shocking upbringing to a North Woods homestead, finding powerful respect for
nature that would stay with him throughout his life. At the age of thirteen, a
librarian handed him his first book, and there he found a last love of reading.
As a teenager, he desperately enlisted in the Army, and there discovered his
true calling as a storyteller.
Gone to
the Woods reads like fiction, told
from the perspective of ‘the boy,’ Gary. His character’s many forays into the
woods are depicted with Gary finding haven, sustenance, and adventure. The
writing is simple but sweeps the reader along as the boy faces blood suckers,
fish gutting, scrounging for food, even standing his ground against a ferocious
posse of wild geese.
Paulsen has received great
acclaim and many awards for his novels written for young readers. Hatchet, and
its sequel, The Return, are among his best-known works. He is a three-time Newbery Honor-Winning author.
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