Gary Paulsen
This afternoon I had the incredible good fortune to get to interview Gary Paulsen over the phone about his January 2010 release Woods Runner. I won’t reveal too many details from the conversation (for that, you’ll have to wait for our January feature on BookPage.com), but I will give this teaser: In our hour-long conversation, I somehow managed to seriously crack up over Paulsen’s jokes; be incredibly inspired by his love of reading and writing; and feel compelled to buy a used copy of Hatchet on my lunch hour since my own copy is on the shelf in the house where I grew up. If you love Paulsen (and what fan of children’s literature doesn’t?), then you are in for a treat come January. Woods Runner is excellent, and it was made many times better when I got some background information from the author.
I did manage to extract a bit of news you may be interested in. Paulsen is an amazingly prolific writer (he’s written over 175 books), and 2010 will be no exception. Besides Woods Runner (out on Jan. 12), you can look forward to the release of Lawn Boy Returns on May 11. This is the sequel to Paulsen’s Lawn Boy, a novel about a kid who makes nearly half a million dollars when he starts up his own lawn business. BookPage reviewer Angela Leeper wrote of the novel: “With his quick-paced, conversational narration and such chapter headings as ‘The Law of Increasing Product Demand Versus Flat Production Capacity,’ Paulsen presents capitalism and storytelling at its best in this delightful summer story.”
Paulsen has another intriguing project in the works. He has written a book about kids who read books (such as Moby Dick), then try to re-enact them. The book was inspired by a fan who sent him a homemade video re-enactment of Hatchet (that involved the kid taking his mom’s fur coat into a swamp). No publication date on this one yet, but we’ll keep you posted.
Related in BookPage: An interview with Paulsen from 2003.
What’s your favorite Paulsen book? There are a lot to choose from! My favorite is Harris & Me. I found out today that “Me” is really Gary.
November 22, 2009 at 10:29 am |
‘The Haymeadow’ was the first Gary Paulsen book that I read. I knew from then on that I would seek out other books written by him. The Haymeadow was also an excellent book to encourage boys to read.
November 22, 2009 at 5:32 pm |
It’s shameful that Paulsen hypes the Iditarod to kids. For the dogs, the Iditarod is a bottomless pit of suffering. Six dogs died in the 2009 Iditarod, including two dogs on Dr. Lou Packer’s team who froze to death in the brutally cold winds. What happens to the dogs during the race includes death, paralysis, frostbite (where it hurts the most!), bleeding ulcers, bloody diarrhea, lung damage, pneumonia, ruptured discs, viral diseases, broken bones, torn muscles and tendons and sprains. At least 142 dogs have died in the race. No one knows how many dogs die after this tortuous ordeal or during training.
On average, 52 percent of the dogs who start the race do not make it across the finish line. According to a report published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, of those who do finish, 81 percent have lung damage. A report published in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine said that 61 percent of the dogs who complete the Iditarod have ulcers versus zero percent pre-race.
Iditarod dog kennels are puppy mills. Mushers breed large numbers of dogs and routinely kill unwanted ones, including puppies. Many dogs who are permanently disabled in the Iditarod, or who are unwanted for any reason, including those who have outlived their usefulness, are killed with a shot to the head, dragged, drowned or clubbed to death. “Dogs are clubbed with baseball bats and if they don’t pull are dragged to death
in harnesses……” wrote former Iditarod dog handler Mike Cranford in an article for Alaska’s Bush Blade Newspaper.
Dog beatings and whippings are common. During the 2007 Iditarod, eyewitnesses reported that musher Ramy Brooks kicked, punched and beat his dogs with a ski pole and a chain. Jim Welch says in his book Speed Mushing Manual, “Nagging a dog team is cruel and ineffective…A training device such as a whip is not cruel at all but is effective.” “It is a common training device in use among dog mushers…”
Jon Saraceno wrote in his March 3, 2000 column in USA Today, “He [Colonel Tom Classen] confirmed dog beatings and far worse. Like starving dogs to maintain their most advantageous racing weight. Skinning them to make mittens.. Or dragging them to their death.”
During the race, veterinarians do not give the dogs physical exams at every checkpoint. Mushers speed through many checkpoints, so the dogs get the briefest visual checks, if that. Instead of pulling sick dogs from the race, veterinarians frequently give them massive doses of antibiotics to keep them running.
Most Iditarod dogs are forced to live at the end of a chain when they aren’t hauling people around. It has been reported that dogs who don’t make the main team are never taken off-chain. Chained dogs have been attacked by wolves, bears and other animals. Old and arthritic dogs suffer terrible pain in the blistering cold.
The Iditarod, with all the evils associated with it, has become a synonym for exploitation. The race imposes torture no dog should be forced to endure.
Margery Glickman
Director
Sled Dog Action Coalition, http://www.helpsleddogs.org
December 1, 2009 at 12:01 pm |
Disregarding the rant above, I love Paulsen. The Hatchet was my favorite when I was a kid.
And in regards to re-enacting our favorite books, my neighbor and I made a stuffed animal puppet show of Redwall with my dad’s video camera after we read the entire series over and over again. There’s something really fun about re-creating a story you love so much on your own; I’m looking forward to Paulsen’s book on the subject.
January 30, 2010 at 7:44 am |
Hey, found your site by accident doing a search on Bing but I will definitely be coming back. As for your post… I agree with a lot of what you’re saying here but wouldn’t it be just as easy to focus on the postive? I mean why mess with your quality of life if you don’t have to?