Gary Paulsen

After a plane crash, thirteen-year-old Brian spends fifty-four days in the Canadian wilderness, learning to survive initially with only the aid of a hatchet given him by his mother, and learning also to survive his parents' divorce.

Two years after he survived a plane crash in the Canadian wilderness, a sixteen-year-old returns to the wild where he feels he belongs. In a temporary camp on the way to visit his friends, Brian Robeson finds a dog, wounded and whimpering. The dog is badly hurt, and as Brian cares for it, he worries about his friends. His instincts tell him to head north, quickly. With his new companion at his side, and with a terrible, growing sense of unease, he...

Because of his success surviving alone in the wilderness for fifty-four days, fifteen-year-old Brian, profoundly changed by his time in the wild, is asked to undergo a similar experience to help scientists learn more about the psychology of survival.

When sickness decimates his fishing camp, an orphan named Leif flees north in a cedar canoe, journeying along a brutal but beautiful coastline.

Things get out of hand for a twelve-year-old boy when a neighbor convinces him to expand his summer lawn mowing business.

When Johanna shows up at the beginning of summer to house-sit next door to Finn, he has no idea of the profound effect she will have on his life by the time summer vacation is over.

Fourteen-year-old Kevin is a hard worker, so when his income is cut off he begins a series of businesses, from poker games to selling snacks, earning money to take a girl to a dance, but his partners soon tire of his methods.

Born into the middle of World War II, Gary Paulsen's turbulent childhood provided plenty of subject matter for his bestselling novels, and the librarians in his life gave him the inspiration and support to explore the world through books. As a soldier himself, his storytelling technique developed, and for the first time he shares his own.

A priceless, handcrafted rifle, fired throughout the American Revolution, is passed down through the years until it fires on a fateful Christmas Eve of 1994.

Survival in the wilderness—Gary Paulsen writes about it so powerfully in his novels Hatchet and The River because he's lived it.  These essays recount his adventures alone and with friends, along the rivers and in the woods of northern Minnesota. There, fishing and hunting are serious business, requiring skill, secrets, and inspiration. Luck, too—not every big one gets away.
This book takes readers through the seasons,...