Showing results for "Gary Paulsen" in Literature & Fiction

Thirteen-year-old Mark Harrison has a week to hike across the desert. He will meet his parents on the other side. By his fourth day, he’s made good time. As he settles in for the night, he gazes up at the stars, feeling completely content. Suddenly, a blue light streams from the sky, jolting Mark into another dimension. Now, in a land filled with strange jungle animals and primitive tribes, Mark desperately battles hunger, armed enemies, and superhuman powers.

Fourteen-year-old David Alspeth is the owner of a 22-foot sailboat, an inheritance from his uncle Owen, who recently died of cancer. Uncle Owen’s last request before he died was that David should take his ashes out to sea, a job David would give anything to avoid. When he finally sets sail on calm, clear evening, David feels the weight of what he must do all around him. He can’t imagine life without Owen. David completes his task, but on the return trip home he is caught unawares by a freak storm. 

When his family packs up and moves from the city to a small town deep in the Wisconsin countryside, 15-year-old Wil Neuton makes an exhilarating discovery. He finds a small island on a nearby lake, a place where he can be alone and learn to know nature—and himself. On his island, he can write, paint, and watch the loons and fish in the lake. Wil can’t stay away from the outside world forever, though. Sooner or later, he must return and face the bully determined to fight him and his bickering parents, who worry when Wil decides to stay on the island indefinitely.

Samuel, 13, spends his days in the forest, hunting for food for his family. He has grown up on the frontier of a British colony, America. Far from any town, or news of the war against the King that American patriots have begun near Boston. But the war comes to them. British soldiers and Iroquois...

This story of two Norwegian-American farm boys who discover the remarkable magic of storytelling is vintage Gary Paulsen - earthy, gritty, and ultimately poignant. Be aware that Paulsen vividly describes the reality of farm life, including slaughtering pigs and shoveling manure, as the story unfolds.

The Complicated Calculus (and Cows) of Carl Paulsen follows fifteen-year-old Carl as he confronts his crush on Andy Olnan, a handsome and confident “city boy” recently transplanted to farm life from Minneapolis who may or may not share the same feelings. At the same time, Carl and his father clash over the future of their small and struggling dairy farm, a legacy of Carl’s late mother: how do they honor her dream for the family while also ensuring financial security?

Fourteen-year-old Terry has parents who never paid him much attention. So when they both disappear after one of their all-too-frequent arguments, Terry isn’t exactly eager for them to come home. On his own, he occupies himself by assembling a car kit that’s been collecting dust in the garage for years. When the car is finished, Terry is pleased to discover it actually runs. Though he doesn’t know much about driving, he gets behind the wheel and heads west, with the notion of visiting an uncle in Oregon. But Terry’s plan takes a detour when he meets Shakespeare-quoting wanderer Waylon Jackson....

As the Civil War rages around the plantation where Sarny lives, she hears of other slaves running away. They are following the sparkling drinking gourd in the northern sky to freedom. She longs to go wherever she wants and to be allowed to read books, just like the freed slaves. But she has a young son and daughter to look after. When the master sells her children to a stranger, Sarny waits for an opportunity to sneak away to search for them. Her chance comes after a Union soldier kills the master.

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...

When Janet’s parents divorce, the 15-year-old moved with her mother to the isolated artist colony in Tres Pinos, New Mexico. As the only Anglo girl in her class, Janet feels like an outsider. At night she dreams of an exquisite moonlit stream. On its banks a delicate doe gently sips from the cool waters. Then an Indian warrior appears, an almost poetic vision from a past tie with his bow drawn, ready to strike. Janet’s first encounter with a local Indian proves to be anything but dramatic.

His uncle wanted him to stay home and work the farm. But the boy knew there was a world out there he had to see. Yet being a runaway meant you were outside the law - fair game. That’s how he got caught on the farm gang. There was no way out, until Tiltawhirl John picked him up and taught him how to be a carnie, how to stay one step ahead of the suckers. But there was one man from the past even T-John couldn’t keep ahead of. How could the kid keep him from destroying his future?

Carley would rather have been anywhere but here: a town deep in Minnesota’s farm country, with nothing plentiful except poverty. Still, staying with his Uncle David and his family was better than reform school - which was where Carley was heading. Something was eating away at him, making him do crazy things. No one could understand why - least of all Carley himself. But then David took Carley to his blacksmith forge. And under the grim nights and days of the Minnesota fall, under the glow of hot steel, and the most exhausting work he had ever known, Carley began to see a way to shape his life.

Cowboy stories and movies about the Wild West are full of amazing characters. Yet many of the lawmen we think of as heroes were anything but - some were violent scoundrels and outlaws themselves. Among all the lawmen of the frontier, one man stands out as a true hero: Bass Reeves. In his day, Bass Reeves was the most successful federal marshal in the United States. True to the mythical code of the West, he never drew his gun first. He rounded up hundreds of outlaws and was shot at countless times but was never hit. Bass Reeves was born into slavery.

Brian sets out on the hunt of a lifetime in this follow-up to the award-winning classic Hatchet from three-time Newbery Honor-winning author Gary Paulsen! Brian Robeson has stood up to the challenge of surviving the wilderness in Hatchet, The River, Brian's Winter, and Brian's Return. Now, while...

For a 16-year-old boy out in the world alone for the first time, every day is an education in the hard work and boredom of migrant labor; every day teaches him something more about friendship, or hunger, or profanity, or lust - always lust. He learns how a poker game, or hitching a ride, can turn deadly. He discovers the secret sadness and generosity to be found on a lonely farm in the middle of nowhere. Then he joins up with a carnival and becomes a grunt, running a ride and shilling for the geek show. He’s living the hard carny life and beginning to see the world through carny eyes. Until her.

They are four different people with four separate lives: Sue, a young woman distanced from her native roots; David, a traveler in search of a dream; Laura, a student seeking her parents’ understanding; and Peter, a rock star struggling to create a perfect sound.One looming fate threatens them all. And everything they love may be taken away in one fleeting second…

Tony’s mom, Al, is a terrific single mother who works as a dancer at the Kitty Kat Club. Twelve-year-old Tony is a budding artist, inspired by backstage life at the club. When some of his drawings end up in an art show and catch the attention of the social services agency, Al and Tony find themselves in the middle of a legal wrangle and a media circus. Is Al a responsible mother? It’s the case of the stripper vs. the state, and Al isn’t giving Tony up without a fight.

I should have seen it coming. A long time before it came I should have known.I was six or seven years old and there was a girl living next door named Peggy. She was a year older than me and a lot stronger and we were wrestling and she held me down.... All of a sudden it seemed there was something about girls that wasn’t all bad. I didn’t know what it was but I should have known that this first feeling with Peggy Ollendorfer meant that down the road, later, I was in for a big surprise. Afterward, when I was a little older, if you’d asked me what the surprise was like, I’d have said it was about like getting hit by a train.

Life on the Waller plantation is harsh and bleak. Twelve-year-old Sarny knows that it won’t be long before she will be forced to leave Mammy and join the other young women who serve the master’s household as breeders. Then one day a new slave arrives, bought from an overseer for a thousand dollars. He comes in a bad way, walking in front of the horses and Waller’s ready whip. His back is covered with scars as thick as Sarny’s hand, but he holds his head high.

Gary Paulsen was one of the kids who slipped through the cracks, until art and dogs saved him. So are Jake, Jojo, and Jamie, all 12-year-olds who, like Gary Paulsen, had to grow up too fast. Gary Paulsen’s three poignant novellas add up to an unforgettable book.