None of his
nearly 100 books is in sight, nor any of his awards
ince then
there have been four sequels to Hatchet: The
River, which picks up the story a year
later; Brian's Winter, a "what-if" sequel
(what would have happened if The River sequel
had not occurred) and written in response to all the "sequel-letters" he
received from fans; Brian's Return; and Brian's
Hunt (2004).
(In Guts [Delacorte, 2001—see note below],
Paulsen describes the actual real-life events that he incorporated
into Hatchet and the "Brian" books,
giving young readers a keen insight to how a writer's personal
experiences feed the narrative. He hoped Guts would
answer some of the 250-400 letters a day he receives about
the series. Click on GUTS to read
an excerpt (below).
For
the 20th anniversary of Hatchet, Paulsen's publisher
issued a special edition of the book containing fascinating
background notes by the author on both the subject matter
and how he wrote it (see image right). To my knowledge,
this is a first in children's literature.
Today,
having passed age 50, health problems have driven a sober
Paulsen back to the climate of New Mexico (see update
below). His more than 30 dogs are gone, alive only in his
books. He sees the only race left to him now as the one
between himself and death. He has much to say, yet fears
he has little time left in which to say it. His wife scoffs
at this but he races on, trying to make up for lost time,
averaging more than a book a year, and talking with teachers
and classes of school children. Movie offers arrive regularly
for his books and he can take his pick from a dozen publishers
standing in line at his door.
Success,
however, hasn't spoiled him. None of his nearly 100 books
is in sight at home, nor are any of the awards he has won. "That's
dangerous," he
says, "if you start looking at that stuff. You become
corrupt." Instead, what he chooses to look at and
write about is the precious human struggle to survive,
drawing upon his life as an alcoholic, field engineer,
soldier, actor, farmer, carpenter, demolition worker, rancher,
truck driver, trapper, migrant farm worker, sailor, and
professional writer.
Paulsen
has also written an adult autobiography, Eastern
Sun, Winter Moon,
that details his painful childhood years, as well as a
memoir of his relationships with dogs, My Life in Dog
Years. His life and various books are also the subject
of an excellent study/volume by Prof. Gary M. Salvner, Presenting
Gary Paulsen [Twayne Publishers/Simon & Schuster
Macmillan/NY, NY]. Less scholarly and written as a children's
biography is GARY PAULSEN, by Stephanie True Peters,
from The Learning Works (P.O. Box 6187 Santa Barbara, CA
93160). Also, "Talking with Gary Paulsen" by
Kay Weisman can be found in the September 2003 issue of Book
Links.
In
a brilliant extension of the Hatchet/Brian series, Paulsen
answers the most constant questions he receives from his
devoted readers in GUTS: The True Stories Behind Hatchet
and the Brian Books. Wondering if Paulsen just makes
things up as he goes along or whether he's personally experienced
these catastrophes, they write him thousands of letters.
One moving example, out of many in this fast-paced
volume, is Paulsen's description of his tenure as a rural
emergency squad volunteer where he had to cover a thousand
square miles in an outdated ambulance, often arriving too
late to help the heart attack victims who had perished
before his arrival (such as the pilot in Hatchet).
Students will love his actual food recipes for surviving
in the wilderness, including "Eyeballs and Guts." You
can find a brief excerpt from GUTS at
the bottom of this page.
So where in the
world is Gary Paulsen now?Anne Goodwin Sides caught up
with him in his latest abode, Willow, Alaska, where he's
back to running dogs, something he'd given up a few years
back. Her profile can be found online through The Times' archives: "On
the Road and Between the Pages, an Author Is Restless for
Adventure "The
New York Times, Aug. 26, 2006.
Although
largely overshadowed by the Hatchet series, Paulsen's Francis
Tucket series deserves just as much attention as it
follows a 14-year-old boy during a two year quest (1847-1849)
to find his family on the western frontier. The five books
were issued separately and then combined in 2003 as a single
500-page paperback (Dell), Tucket's
Travels. The individual
titles (still available in hardcover and paper) are: Mr.
Tucket; Call Me Francis Tucket; Tucket's Ride; Tucket's
Gold; and Tucket's
Home. One of my grandsons had the series
read to him at age 7 and it was a huge hit, although the
reading audience is usually about 5th grade.
Other
Paulsen titles include: Canyons; The Car; The Crossing;
The Island; Nightjohn and
its sequel, Sarny:
A Life Remembered; Monument; The Rifle; Woods Runner; Lawn Boy; Sentries; The Tent;
Tracker; The Transall Saga (a
time-travel novel); How
Angel Peterson Got His Name: And Other Outrageous Tales
about Extreme Sports; and
a survival-at-sea novel, The
Voyage of the Frog. He
is also the co-author with Brian Burks of Murphy's
Stand and Murphy's
Ambush.
Paulsen
is also the author of a popular Dell paperback adventure
series aimed at primary-grade readers: Captive!; Danger
on Midnight River; Escape from Fire Mountain; The Gorgon
Slayer; Hook 'Em, Snotty!; The Legend of Red Horse Cavern;
Project: A Perfect World; The Rock Jockeys; Rodomonte's
Revenge; The Seventh Crystal; and Skydive!
DISCLAIMER
NOTICE: I often receive
mail intended for Gary Paulsen, sent to me in hopes that
I will forward it to him. The fact is that I do not know
Gary Paulsen's current home address. He moves often,
perhaps to escape the huge mail deliveries. In any case,
all correspondence must be directed to his respective
publisher.. The official
Paulsen Web site is: www.garypaulsen.com. Caution, teachers: Please do not encourage
students to write to popular authors with the expectations
of either a response or a photograph/bookmark/autograph.
That is unfair to both the author and the student. One
of the best books Beverly Cleary ever wrote, Dear
Mr. Henshaw,
was about this very subject, among other things. As noted
above, Paulsen receives from 250 to 400 letters a
day. The chances of a response are slim, to none. Why set the student up for disappointment? If they are goig to write to the author, encourage them not to expect anything in return. A book can be very much like a conversation with the author; the reader is free to respond in a letter or email but the author has already completed his or her side of the conversation by writing the book.
HAVE
YOU READ: Those who enjoy Gary Paulsen's
outdoor adventure novels will also enjoy these books
by Will Hobbs:
Bearstone; Beardance; Far North;
The Big Wander; and Kokopelli's
Flute. Also: Rascal and The
Wolfling, both by Sterling
North; Call of the Wild and White
Fang, both by Jack London;
Kavik the Wolf Dog by Walt Morey; Lost
in the Barrens by
Farley Mowat; Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson
Rawls;
Kensuke's Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo; The
Iceberg Hermit by Arthur Roth (out of print but easily
secured through inter-library loan at a public library
or bookfinder.com); and Winter Danger by William
O. Steele.
*Gary Paulsen photo on first page
by Ruth Wright Paulsen
efore I
was fortunate enough to become a successful writer,
I worked at home, writing as much as I could between
construction jobs. Because I had so much downtime,
I added my name to a list of volunteers available to
answer emergency ambulance calls. My wife and I lived
then in a small prairie town in the middle of farm
country, near the confluence of two major highways.
The volunteer service was small, and all we had was
one old ambulance donated by a city that had bought
new ones. But we were the only service available for
thousands of square miles. We
answered calls to highway wrecks, farm accidents,
poisonings, gunshot accidents and many, many heart
attacks. I would go out on calls alone or with another
man who also worked at home.
I saw at least a dozen heart attack
victims in the first year. Sadly, most of them were
dead before I arrived. The distances we had to cover
were so great that we simply could not get there
in time to save them. If we did arrive before they
died, we had to wait an hour or more for the "flight
for life" chopper from the nearest city. Often
it arrived too late.
When I came to write Hatchet, I
remembered one call to a small ranch some sixty miles
northeast of Colorado Springs. It was early in the
morning when the siren cut loose, and I ran half-dressed
for my old truck, drove to the garaged where the
ambulance was kept and answered the phone hanging
on the wall.
"Please come quick!" a
woman said. "It's my Harvey. He's having chest
pains."
She gave me the location of the
ranch and I took off. It should have taken me a full
twenty minutes to get there because of the roughness
of the gravel roads but I arrived in fourteen minutes
by driving like a maniac.
It was just getting light as I
ran into the house carrying our emergency bag, and
I could smell what was happening as soon as I entered
the kitchen . . .
—
excerpted from GUTS by Gary Paulsen, Delacorte
2001
Three author profiles appear
at this site from Jim Trelease's popular read-aloud anthologies, Hey! Listen to This & Read All
About It!
including the remarkable background stories missing from
the dust jackets of their books.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE Trelease on Reading is copyright, 2011, 2014, 2019 by Jim Trelease.
All rights reserved. Any problems
or queries about this site should be directed
to:
Reading Tree Webmaster
We
answered calls to highway wrecks, farm accidents,
poisonings, gunshot accidents and many, many heart
attacks. I would go out on calls alone or with another
man who also worked at home.
