![]() ![]() ![]() Gary Paulsen got headbutted by a moose and only lost three teeth (basically true).īut mostly it was the books. Gary Paulsen sailed alone to Fiji (true). Gary Paulsen ran the Iditarod, all 938 frigid miles of it, with his dog team (true). Gary Paulsen dug up a snapping turtle egg and ate it raw, just to know the taste (true). The ballad of his life, outlined on countless About the Author pages, was a tale as grand as any of his novels. Part of the allure, admittedly, was always Paulsen himself. Since at least the ’80s, Gary Paulsen books have been like scripture for a certain kind of child. I must have read Hatchet a hundred times as a kid - an experience which, I can now admit, hardly made me unique. Several of those books - Hatchet, Dogsong, The Winter Room - have achieved an iconic status among young people that few books ever do. ![]() He was among the most prolific children’s authors in American history, publishing about 200 books over more than half a century (his final novel, already in production at the time of his death, will be released next year). Like Robert Stone or Richard Brautigan, Paulsen was born into poverty, reared in the wartime culture of the late Depression, and eventually found his calling as a novelist writing in the vernacular of a wounded and humbled America. Gary Paulsen, who died last week at the age of 82, probably could have been a literary titan of a different kind, if he’d wanted to go that route. ![]()
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