You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.1 AVERAGE
4.1 AVERAGE
I forgot how much I loved Gary Paulsen when I was a kid. I'm glad to have rediscovered him.
Gary Paulsen tells the story of his childhood which did not have very many bright spots. His love of nature kept him going through some tough times.
A wonderful addition to the Paulsen collection. He speaks honestly about his childhood, the good and the bad. Speaking in the third person allows a bit of distance from horrors he faced as a small child and allows the reader that distance as well. For those students who are avid Paulsen fans, they will recognize nuggets from his life that eventually became a novel. These moments are exciting to find.
He is unsparing with the horrible things he was forced to endure, but also generous in offering those parts of his life that offered him hope and survival skills. From his aunt and uncle, who showed him what a true family might be, to the librarian who changed the course of his life, unknowingly stopping his cycle of running, we see how small moments plant the seeds for long term survival.
For our students who come from challenging backgrounds, it is this that I hope they latch on to. I think they will appreciate the honesty with which Paulsen offers up his childhood... there is no sugar coating what my students recognize as wrong. I hope they also learn to look for and latch on to the seeds in their own lives. And perhaps, learn to use the written word to sort out their feelings as they grow. This is a worthwhile read.
He is unsparing with the horrible things he was forced to endure, but also generous in offering those parts of his life that offered him hope and survival skills. From his aunt and uncle, who showed him what a true family might be, to the librarian who changed the course of his life, unknowingly stopping his cycle of running, we see how small moments plant the seeds for long term survival.
For our students who come from challenging backgrounds, it is this that I hope they latch on to. I think they will appreciate the honesty with which Paulsen offers up his childhood... there is no sugar coating what my students recognize as wrong. I hope they also learn to look for and latch on to the seeds in their own lives. And perhaps, learn to use the written word to sort out their feelings as they grow. This is a worthwhile read.
A book for upper middle school, high schoolers, and adults. This doesn't read like your typical autobiography/memoir. There are some purposeful jumps to each major life-changing event in his life. It was well done but not for all readers. I think they will get lost in the jumps. That is not a criticism, it aided the flow of the story and the feel of the book for me. It is just not for young readers on style and content. Paulsen had a harsh childhood and he doesn't show any mercy in his retelling of that childhood. Some of your students who have had hard lives will understand and connect to his story.
*On a side note, I wanted more details about Uncle Sid and Aunt Edy. Why didn't he run back to them and the farm!?! What happened? Where was the family later in his adolescent life?
*On a side note, I wanted more details about Uncle Sid and Aunt Edy. Why didn't he run back to them and the farm!?! What happened? Where was the family later in his adolescent life?
Librarians save lives: by handing the right book, at the right time, to a kid in need. —Judy Blume Never doubt. Listed on Mock Newbery 2022
Thanks to #netgalley #garypaulsen for the advance copy of Gone to the Woods: Surviving a Lost Childhood
During my first semester of library school, the first young adult book I read was Hatchet. This began a lasting fascination with action adventure and survival fiction. And Hatchet remains a steadfast, go to recommendation I give to any reluctant reader. Gone to the Woods: Surviving a Lost Childhood is a middle grade memoir that provides the reader with seminal moments that marked Paulsen’s uneasy childhood. From the beginning his early life was marked by neglect and caustic parenting. At the age of five, his grandmother convinced his mother to send Gary to live with her sister far north in the woods. His mother happily accepted the notion and with only a small suitcase and five dollars in his pocket, puts Gary aboard a train. “She dropped him off at the train station to make the four-hundred-mile run to Minneapolis to connect to a different, slower north-woods train that would take him north another four hundred or so miles to International Falls, Minnesota, on the Canadian border, where he would be met by a total stranger to take him the final rough distance to the first farm his grandmother had selected. A five-year-old child. Completely and totally alone.”
At the age of 5, Paulsen was already accustomed to and mostly proficient at fending for himself. The farm, as it turns out has more lessons to be learned about self sufficiency, but administered with a kinder and more gentle hand. It is with his aunt and uncle that Gary develops his first sense of safety, security, and belonging. And he discovers the serenity, solace, and enchantment of the natural world, a connection that would direct him and provide respite throughout his life. Sadly, his time on the farm was a brief ellipsis in his life. But it did provide him with a reference for everything that came before and after. Paulsen goes on to recount a horrific stint in Manila, just at the tail end of World War II, reunited with his absentee military father. His parents are abusive, neglectful, alcoholics and, together, an explosive combination. This, coupled with the every day atrocities and horrors of a war torn country, heightens his survival skills but also creates in him a great distrust of most adults. Out of sheer necessity, he is able to compartmentalize much of the trauma he experiences and continues with heartbreaking pluck and fortitude. “And after that, a part of him, a part of his spirit, was calloused and toughened. Like leather. And he would not and could not be young again. Ever.” At some point the family returns to the states and settles in a small town. His parents become an ugly footnote from the this point on. Paulsen lives in a decrepit corner of the basement in their apartment building, or in the woods at the edge of town when the weather is cooperative, keeping out sight, keeping to himself, providing for himself working odd jobs. He’s in and out school, a place that he has little use for. “...not, he thought, that school mattered for him. It worked for others. Didn’t work for him. Teachers said things he was supposed to hear and handed him work to study, but he didn’t hear or couldn’t study, because he had to think about other things... He never thought about school except to know it was a nightmare walking.”
Paulsen runs away several times finding work on farms and ranches, once in a carnival, but is always found out and returned home despite the fact that his parents often don’t even realize he’s been gone nor want him around. He finds literal refuge in the library. “Place smelled like wood and what? Smelled like … books. Official-looking wood-book-smelling quiet place that made you relax the minute you came in the door. That’s what made it feel safe. An official government place where nobody would mess with you. A safe place where none of the loud-hard kids would come...It happened that way. Somehow, without thinking, the library became part of what he was, what he did. A safe place. Like the woods.” But it was more than the safety of the building that beckoned him. “It was the library and the librarian.”
At the age of thirteen, Paulsen is befriended by the librarian who wins him over wary encounters and slow and cautious conversations in which he feels heard and seen for the first time. “The library was how and where and when he came to learn things.” This relationship proves to be momentous turning point in Paulsen’s development. The librarian not only unlocks the magic and utility of reading for him, but also encourages him to write. “He wrote for the librarian with the warm smile. Even after she was gone and he was living in new places, living new ways, even then he carried the notebook with a blue cover and a yellow pencil and wrote all he saw and did and could remember. Always for the librarian with the warm smile. Who first showed him how to read the whole book.” As a librarian, this is the Mecca. What we know and believe to be our holy grail. The remainder of his teen years are spent in various pursuits, including a program at a vocational school.
“When he was about to flunk out of the eleventh grade, the state stepped in and he was passed to twelfth grade with the “proviso” (their word, not his) that he was to pay attention and really try to learn a vocation as a television repair man and not be a ‘burden to society.’” Again, this proves to a pivotal moment and one that would shape his prospects for many years. “Pure magic. And he loved it. Ate it with a spoon, ravenous to know more and more, to figure out how it all worked and to really know everything there was to learn about this new thing. And although he did not even sense it at the time, he would find later that the knowledge, the technical base of the knowledge, would affect him profoundly and for the rest of his life.” Paulsen enlists in the army after graduation. His experience, marksmanship, and technical intelligence all provided a career pathway he might otherwise never imagined while also showing him he wanted a big life with many adventures not a jaded one filled with regrets or longing.
The book ends a bit abruptly. Readers who see it through will marvel at his resilience and perseverance. It’s simply amazing that almost from his inception, he was a survivalist, intent on winning with the impossible hand he was dealt. He’s plucky, gritty, and determined. I think it could be a good book for guided discussion and possibly, a good read aloud. I’m not sure it will find a lot of young readership on its own. The writing is staccato, punctuated by short, almost stream of conscious sentences. But taken as a whole, you’ll marvel at his tenacity.
During my first semester of library school, the first young adult book I read was Hatchet. This began a lasting fascination with action adventure and survival fiction. And Hatchet remains a steadfast, go to recommendation I give to any reluctant reader. Gone to the Woods: Surviving a Lost Childhood is a middle grade memoir that provides the reader with seminal moments that marked Paulsen’s uneasy childhood. From the beginning his early life was marked by neglect and caustic parenting. At the age of five, his grandmother convinced his mother to send Gary to live with her sister far north in the woods. His mother happily accepted the notion and with only a small suitcase and five dollars in his pocket, puts Gary aboard a train. “She dropped him off at the train station to make the four-hundred-mile run to Minneapolis to connect to a different, slower north-woods train that would take him north another four hundred or so miles to International Falls, Minnesota, on the Canadian border, where he would be met by a total stranger to take him the final rough distance to the first farm his grandmother had selected. A five-year-old child. Completely and totally alone.”
At the age of 5, Paulsen was already accustomed to and mostly proficient at fending for himself. The farm, as it turns out has more lessons to be learned about self sufficiency, but administered with a kinder and more gentle hand. It is with his aunt and uncle that Gary develops his first sense of safety, security, and belonging. And he discovers the serenity, solace, and enchantment of the natural world, a connection that would direct him and provide respite throughout his life. Sadly, his time on the farm was a brief ellipsis in his life. But it did provide him with a reference for everything that came before and after. Paulsen goes on to recount a horrific stint in Manila, just at the tail end of World War II, reunited with his absentee military father. His parents are abusive, neglectful, alcoholics and, together, an explosive combination. This, coupled with the every day atrocities and horrors of a war torn country, heightens his survival skills but also creates in him a great distrust of most adults. Out of sheer necessity, he is able to compartmentalize much of the trauma he experiences and continues with heartbreaking pluck and fortitude. “And after that, a part of him, a part of his spirit, was calloused and toughened. Like leather. And he would not and could not be young again. Ever.” At some point the family returns to the states and settles in a small town. His parents become an ugly footnote from the this point on. Paulsen lives in a decrepit corner of the basement in their apartment building, or in the woods at the edge of town when the weather is cooperative, keeping out sight, keeping to himself, providing for himself working odd jobs. He’s in and out school, a place that he has little use for. “...not, he thought, that school mattered for him. It worked for others. Didn’t work for him. Teachers said things he was supposed to hear and handed him work to study, but he didn’t hear or couldn’t study, because he had to think about other things... He never thought about school except to know it was a nightmare walking.”
Paulsen runs away several times finding work on farms and ranches, once in a carnival, but is always found out and returned home despite the fact that his parents often don’t even realize he’s been gone nor want him around. He finds literal refuge in the library. “Place smelled like wood and what? Smelled like … books. Official-looking wood-book-smelling quiet place that made you relax the minute you came in the door. That’s what made it feel safe. An official government place where nobody would mess with you. A safe place where none of the loud-hard kids would come...It happened that way. Somehow, without thinking, the library became part of what he was, what he did. A safe place. Like the woods.” But it was more than the safety of the building that beckoned him. “It was the library and the librarian.”
At the age of thirteen, Paulsen is befriended by the librarian who wins him over wary encounters and slow and cautious conversations in which he feels heard and seen for the first time. “The library was how and where and when he came to learn things.” This relationship proves to be momentous turning point in Paulsen’s development. The librarian not only unlocks the magic and utility of reading for him, but also encourages him to write. “He wrote for the librarian with the warm smile. Even after she was gone and he was living in new places, living new ways, even then he carried the notebook with a blue cover and a yellow pencil and wrote all he saw and did and could remember. Always for the librarian with the warm smile. Who first showed him how to read the whole book.” As a librarian, this is the Mecca. What we know and believe to be our holy grail. The remainder of his teen years are spent in various pursuits, including a program at a vocational school.
“When he was about to flunk out of the eleventh grade, the state stepped in and he was passed to twelfth grade with the “proviso” (their word, not his) that he was to pay attention and really try to learn a vocation as a television repair man and not be a ‘burden to society.’” Again, this proves to a pivotal moment and one that would shape his prospects for many years. “Pure magic. And he loved it. Ate it with a spoon, ravenous to know more and more, to figure out how it all worked and to really know everything there was to learn about this new thing. And although he did not even sense it at the time, he would find later that the knowledge, the technical base of the knowledge, would affect him profoundly and for the rest of his life.” Paulsen enlists in the army after graduation. His experience, marksmanship, and technical intelligence all provided a career pathway he might otherwise never imagined while also showing him he wanted a big life with many adventures not a jaded one filled with regrets or longing.
The book ends a bit abruptly. Readers who see it through will marvel at his resilience and perseverance. It’s simply amazing that almost from his inception, he was a survivalist, intent on winning with the impossible hand he was dealt. He’s plucky, gritty, and determined. I think it could be a good book for guided discussion and possibly, a good read aloud. I’m not sure it will find a lot of young readership on its own. The writing is staccato, punctuated by short, almost stream of conscious sentences. But taken as a whole, you’ll marvel at his tenacity.
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
adventurous
tense
slow-paced