Showing results by author "Gary Paulsen" in All Categories

In 1848, fourteen-year-old Francis Tucket was kidnapped from an Oregon-bound wagon train by a Pawnee hunting party. But a one-armed mountain man named Mr. Grimes quickly rescued him and hid him from the hostile tribe. After a year in the mountain wilderness with Mr. Grimes, Francis decides to strike out on his own—to follow the dangerous trail to Oregon and find his family. Francis thinks he can handle just about anything—buffalo stampedes, gun-toting outlaws, and even the constant threat of tribal attacks.

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.

Nikki Roberts feels very grown up when her parents leave her alone in their mountain lodge for a few days. The 13-year-old has promised them she will not take any long horseback rides or canoe trips, so she saddles Goblin and heads for a nearby sheep meadow for the afternoon. It’s not long before Nikki’s trail leads her into perilous territory. She surprises deadly poachers at work who are shooting bighorn rams for trophies. Her CB radio picks up a distress call from two children stranded in a forest fire that has broken out down river.

Every winter, John Borne looked forward to the days when he and his grandfather headed into the snowy Minnesota woods to hunt together. John admired the reverent, familiar way the old man had with the woods. But this year his grandfather is dying and 13-year-old John must make the hunt alone. Without his beloved grandfather, the hunt is cold and lonely—until John spots the doe watching and waiting for him in the clearing. She is an easy target, but as John raises his rifle to shoot, he knows he cannot kill the vulnerable creature.

As a punishment for lying, Kevin has lost his allowance. He doesn’t lie now, but he’s broke. He’s got to find a way to make money. Lots of it, so he can impress Tina Zabinski, the World’s Most Beautiful Girl, and ask her on a date. So Kevin gets creative - and his life becomes a financial comedy of errors. Does he really have what it takes to get filthy rich at age fourteen? In Gary Paulsen’s hilarious follow-up to Liar, Liar, Kevin’s schemes lead him into situations that are sweet, some that are sticky, and some that are downright stinky.

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 100 years later, while camping near Dog Canyon, 15-year-old Brennan Cole becomes obsessed with a skull he finds, pierced by a bullet. He learns it is the skull of an Apache boy executed by soldiers in 1864. A mystical link joins Brennan and Coyote Runs, and Brennan knows that neither boy will find peace until Coyote Runs' skull is carried back to an ancient sacred place.

His name is synonymous with high-stakes wilderness survival stories. Now, beloved author Gary Paulsen portrays a series of life-altering moments from his turbulent childhood as his own original survival story. If not for his summer escape from a shockingly neglectful Chicago upbringing to a North Woods homestead at age five, there never would have been a Hatchet. Without the encouragement of the librarian who handed him his first book at age 13, he may never have become a reader.

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.

The graphic, coming-of-age tale of a modern Eskimo lad and his consuming vision quest and harrowing struggle for survival. Troubled by changes in his Alaskan village, 14-year-old Russell Suskitt seeks the counsel of the village elder - and only dog team owner. After his training in the ancient arts of hunting with bow and lance, handling sled dogs, and surviving arctic dangers, Russell embarks upon his lonely search for Eskimo manhood.

The award-winning creator of popular survival stories turns his attention to his own real life adventures in Minnesota and Alaska as he prepares for the grueling Iditarod sled dog race.

From the legendary author of Hatchet, a laugh-out-loud middle-grade romp about a boy, his free-thinking dad, and the puppy-training pamphlet that turns their summer upside down.

In this wonderfully crafted novel, a rifle, not the people who come to own it, is the main character. This story follows the rifle from its creation in 1768 to a shattering event as it roars back to life in 1994. Gary Paulsen is one of the most popular writers of young adult fiction in America today.

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.

Here are the real events that inspired Gary Paulsen to write Brian Robeson’s story in Hatchet, The River, Brian’s Winter, Brian’s Return, and Brian's Hunt: a stint as a volunteer emergency worker; the death that became the pilot’s death in Hatchet; plane crashes he’s seen; and his own near misses. He takes listeners 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, and how he met the moose who made it personal.

The Newbery Honor-winning author of Hatchet and Dogsong shares surprising true stories about his relationship with animals, highlighting their compassion, intellect, intuition, and sense of adventure. Gary Paulsen is an adventurer who competed in two Iditarods, survived the Minnesota wilderness, and climbed the Bighorns. None of this would have been possible without his truest companions: his animals.

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.

Fourteen-year-old John Barron is asked, like his father and grandfather before him, to spend the summer taking care of their sheep in the haymeadow. Six thousand sheep. John will be alone, except for two horses, four dogs, and all those sheep. John doesn't feel up to the task, but he hopes that if he can accomplish it, he will finally please his father. But John finds that the adage "things just to sheep" is true when the river floods, coyotes attack, and one dog's feet get cut.

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....

Carl and his 15-year-old cousin stumble into a clearing to find the small tarpaper shack with the smoke coming out of the chimney. It may belong to a trapper. Or it could belong to a woodsy - a man who live in the woods because he can’t be with other people. But with night advancing quickly, the boys know they must find shelter from the coming storm - and fast. And that’s how they first meet the Foxman, a strange recluse with a face hideously deformed by a wartime injury. While Carl is just as glad to leave the shack after the storm, his cousin feels strangely drawn to the Foxman.

Henry Mosley decides that he and his pals Riley and Reed need to go on some earth-shaking adventures and make a name for themselves. Henry is the mastermind; Riley’s the researcher who’s prepared for anything. And somehow fearful Reed always ends up with the scariest, craziest assignments.