Lawn Boy
by Gary Paulsen
from Wendy Lamb Books
One day I was 12 years old and broke. Then Grandma gave me Grandpa's old riding lawnmower. I set out to mow some lawns. More people wanted me to mow their lawns. And more and more. . . . One client was Arnold the stockbroker, who offered to teach me about "the beauty of capitalism. Supply and Demand. Diversify labor. Distribute the wealth." "Wealth?" I said. "It's groovy, man," said Arnold.
If I'd known what was coming, I might have climbed on my mower and putted all the way home to hide in my room. But the lawn business grew and grew. So did my profits, which Arnold invested in many things. And one of them was Joey Pow the prizefighter. That's when my 12th summer got really interesting.
The Call of the Wild (Aladdin Classics)
by Jack London
from Aladdin
First published in 1903, The Call of the Wild is regarded as Jack London's masterpiece. Based on London's experiences as a gold prospector in the Canadian wilderness and his ideas about nature and the struggle for existence, The Call of the Wild is a tale about unbreakable spirit and the fight for survival in the frozen Alaskan Klondike.
The River
by Gary Paulsen
from Yearling
"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.
Because of his success surviving alone in the wilderness for fifty-four days, fifteen-year-old Brian, profoundly changed by his time in the wild, is asked to undergo a similar experience to help scientists learn more about the psychology of survival.
Brian's Winter
by Gary Paulsen
from Laurel Leaf
In Hatchet, 13-year-old Brian Robeson learned to survive alone in the Canadian wilderness, armed only with his hatchet. Finally, as millions of readers know, he was rescued at the end of the summer. But what if Brian hadn't been rescued? What if he had been left to face his deadliest enemy--winter?
Gary Paulsen raises the stakes for survival in this riveting and inspiring story as one boy confronts the ultimate test and the ultimate adventure.
In Hatchet, 13-year-old Brian learned to survive alone in the Canadian wilderness, armed with only a hatchet. He was rescued at the end of the summer. Brian's Winter begins where Hatchet might have ended--Brian is not rescued, but must rely on his survival skills to face his deadliest enemy--a northern winter.
Soldier's Heart : Being the Story of the Enlistment and Due Service of the Boy Charley Goddard in the First Minnesota Volunteers
by Gary Paulsen
from Laurel Leaf
In spare, almost biblical prose, Gary Paulsen writes of the horrors of combat in a Civil War novella that puts a powerful, more contemporary spin on Stephen Crane's classic The Red Badge of Courage. Based on the life of a real boy, it tells the story of Charley Goddard, who lies his way into the Union Army at the age of 15. Charley has never been anyplace beyond Winona, Minnesota, and thinks war would be a great adventure. And it is--at first--as his regiment marches off through cheering crowds and pretty, flag-waving girls. But then comes the battle. Charley screams, "Make it stop now!" disbelieving that anything so horrible could be real. Paulsen is unsparing in the details of what actually happens on the battlefield: the living men suddenly blown into pieces, the agony and fear, the noise and terror, the stinking corpses. After many battles, Charley is wounded and sent home an old man before he is 20, his will to live destroyed by combat fatigue--leaving him with a "soldier's heart." Paulsen has received the Margaret A. Edwards Award, the ALAN Award, and several Newbery Honor awards for previous work, but this superb, small masterpiece transcends any of his earlier titles in its remarkable, memorable intensity and power. (Ages 12 to 15) --Patty Campbell
In June 1861, when the Civil War began, Charley Goddard enlisted in the First Minnesota Volunteers. He was 15. He didn't know what a "shooting war" meant or what he was fighting for. But he didn't want to miss out on a great adventure.
The "shooting war" turned out to be the horror of combat and the wild luck of survival; how it feels to cross a field toward the enemy, waiting for fire. When he entered the service he was a boy. When he came back he was different; he was only 19, but he was a man with "soldier's heart," later known as "battle fatigue."
Hatchet
by Gary Paulsen
from Listening Library
On his way to visit his recently divorced father in the Canadian mountains, thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson is the only survivor when the single-engine plane crashes. His body battered, his clothes in shreds, Brian must now stay alive in the boundless Canadian wilderness.
More than a survival story, Hatchet is a tale of tough decisions. When all is stripped down to the barest essentials, Brian discovers some stark and simple truths: Self-pity doesn't work. Despair doesn't work. And if Brian is to survive physically as well as mentally, he must discover courage.
The Transall Saga
by Gary Paulsen
from Laurel Leaf
Gary Paulsen, author of several books of high adventure and survival--including the Newbery Honor winners Dogsong, Hatchet, and The Winter Room--this time brings readers a science fiction tale reminiscent of Planet of the Apes. The Transall Saga follows 13-year-old Mark on his first solo desert camping trip. After stepping into a mysterious beam of light, Mark is transported to another place--a strange and hostile world. As Mark tries to find his way back home, he learns to survive in this dangerous jungle, calling on reserves of strength he didn't know he had. Encountering wild creatures, primitive tribes, and a more advanced and warlike group of humans, the young protagonist is forced to grow up before he can return to the life he once knew. In the process, he becomes a slave, a warrior, and falls in love--all before the mystery of exactly where he is becomes clear.
As an adventure story and coming-of-age tale, The Transall Saga makes for gripping reading. While the account of Mark carving a new life in a place both strangely familiar and totally alien is cleverly imagined, the science fiction elements are, unfortunately, not nearly as well thought out. Still, fans of Paulsen's other works will find much to enjoy here, including vivid characters, exotic locations, and feral beasts that will not soon be forgotten. (Ages 10 to 15) --Neil Roseman
Find yourself in another world in The Transall Saga, the latest adventure from Gary Paulsen:
Mark's solo camping trip to the desert begins as any other camping trip, until a mysterious beam of light appears.  The trip turns into a terrifying and thrilling adventure when the light beam transports Mark into another time, and what appears to be another planet!  Although he is searching for his way back to earth, in the meantime he is forced to make a life in this unknown world.  He meets primitive tribes and shares the joy of human bonds, but this end of isolation in the new world also brings war and a struggle for power.
From the Hardcover edition.
Brian's Hunt
by Gary Paulsen
from Laurel Leaf
The multitudes of Gary Paulsen fans (or more accurately, Brian fans) will be thrilled to find that the author has penned yet another story about Brian Robeson. Although Paulsen once claimed that he would "write no more about Brian," he seems to have been softened by the "staggering amounts of mail from readers" begging for more about the teen who is more at home alone in the wilderness than in the hustle and bustle of city life. 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?
This short episode is rife with the kind of gritty--even gruesome--details readers have come to expect from the Newbery Honor author. In an afterword, Paulsen reminds readers that he bases his stories on personal experiences and his extensive knowledge of the wild side of nature.
Confidential to avid fans: an intimation of romance amid all the rugged drama hints that this will not be the last Brian book, either. (Ages 10 to 13) --Emilie Coulter
Millions of readers of Hatchet, The River, Brian’s Winter, and Brian’s Return know that Brian Robeson is at home in the Canadian wilderness. He has stood up to the challenge of surviving alone in the woods. He prefers being on his own in the natural world to civilization.
When Brian finds a dog one night, a dog that is wounded and whimpering, he senses danger. The dog is badly hurt, and as Brian cares for it, he worries about his Cree friends who live north of his camp. His instincts tell him to head north, quickly. With his new companion at his side, and with a terrible, growing sense of unease, he sets out to learn what happened. He sets out on the hunt.
From the Hardcover edition.
Millions of readers of Hatchet, The River, Brian's Winter, and Brian's Return know that Brian Robeson is at home in the Canadian wilderness. He has stood up to the challenge of surviving alone in the woods. He prefers being on his own in the natural world to civilization.
When Brian finds a dog one night, a dog that is wounded and whimpering, he senses danger. The dog is badly hurt, and as Brian cares for it, he worries about his Cree friends who live north of his camp. His instincts tell him to head north, quickly. With his new companion at his side, and with a terrible, growing sense of unease, he sets out to learn what happened. He sets out on the hunt.
Guts
by Gary Paulsen
from Laurel Leaf
What do you do when you're being charged by a red-eyed furious wall of brown fur that is an insane moose? How do you make a weapon with your bare hands? How do you sneak up on a grouse or a rabbit, kill it with a well-aimed arrow, and cook it over a fire--without a pot? All this and lots more is essential learning for Brian Robeson, the young wilderness survivor in Gary Paulsen's classic novel Hatchet. In writing that book, Paulsen was determined that everything that happened to Brian--the survival techniques and the physical and emotional traumas--would be drawn closely from reality and his own experiences. In Guts he 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. Hatchet fans will be agog, and parents and teachers will be thrilled to see the enthusiastic reaction of even the most reluctant readers. (Ages 10 to 14) --Patty Campbell
Guess what -- Gary Paulsen was being kind to Brian. In Guts, Gary tells the real stories behind the Brian books, the stories of the adventures that inspired him to write Brian Robeson's story: working as an emergency volunteer; the death that inspired the pilot's death in Hatchet; plane crashes he has seen and near-misses of his own. He describes how he made his own bows and arrows, and takes readers on his first hunting trips, showing the wonder and solace of nature along with his hilarious mishaps and mistakes. He shares special memories, such as the night he attracted every mosquito in the county, or how he met the moose with a sense of humor, and the moose who made it personal. There's a handy chapter on "Eating Eyeballs and Guts or Starving: The Fine Art of Wilderness Nutrition." Recipes included. Readers may wonder how Gary Paulsen survived to write all of his books -- well, it took guts.
From the Hardcover edition.
Dogsong
by Gary Paulsen
from Simon Pulse
IN THE OLD DAYS THERE WERE SONGS
Something is bothering Russel Susskit. He hates waking up to the sound of his father's coughing, the smell of diesel oil, the noise of snow machines starting up.
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.
A Newbery Honor Book
An ALA Best Book for Young Adults
An ALA Notable Book
A School Library Journal Best Book
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