A three-time Newbery Honor winner tells—in a memoir that is even more immediate and compelling than his novels—about his intimate relationship with Minnesota's north woods and the dog team he trained for Alaska's Iditarod.
Beginning with a violent natural incident (a doe killed by wolves) that spurred his own conversion from hunter and trapper to observing habitant of the forest, Paulsen draws a vivid picture of his wilderness life—where bears routinely help themselves to his dog's food and where his fiercely protective bantam adopts a nestful of quail chicks and then terrorizes the household for an entire summer. The incidents he recounts are marvelous. Built of concrete detail, often with a subtext of irony or mystery, they unite in a modest but telling self-portrait of a man who has learned by opening himself to nature—not to idyllic, sentimental nature, but to the harsh, bloody, life-giving real thing. Like nature, the dogs are uncontrollable: independent, wildly individual, yet loyal and dedicated to their task. It takes extraordinary flexibility, courage, and generosity to accept their difficult strengths and make them a team: Paulsen sees humor in their mischief and has learned (almost at the cost of his life) that rigid discipline is irrelevant, even dangerous. This wonderful book concludes with a mesmerizing, day-by-day account of Paulsen's first Iditarod—a thrilling, dangerous journey he was so reluctant to end that he almost turned back within sight of his goal. lt's almost as hard to come to the end of his journal.
This may be Paulsen's best book yet: it should delight and enthrall almost any reader.
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1990
ISBN: 0-02-770221-9
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Bradbury
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1990
Jim Atwater doesn't show much reaction to the suicide of his terminally ill mother, but he does, insidiously, grow more and more possessively protective toward his little brother when the two boys are left alone in the large, fading Brooklyn Heights home of their proper stiff-lipped grandmother. Then Grandmother sends them off for the summer to their father, whom Jim understandably resents for having split when Byron, now eight, was a baby; once in Florida, Jim resents Dad even more for any fatherly gesture he makes toward Byron. Ironically, it is bombing out with Dad's waitress girlfriend that allows Jim to open up—just a crack—toward his father. Thus the air is a little clearer, and so is Jim's head, when he returns to New York for his senior year—willing at last to let go of Byron, who has taken to the barefoot life and decided to stay on with Dad. Jim tells the story in a clipped first person that reflects his veneer of cool; it also reflects a certain slickness on Peck's part—but not enough to invalidate his generally well-drawn relationships.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1978
ISBN: 0812423224
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1978
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fast-paced blend of high-stakes drama and average teenage concerns (sex, appearance, friends), capped with a welcome...
A 16-year-old girl burdened with a tangle of adult and teenage worries gets some unexpected help when a long-lost sibling appears on her doorstep.
When Madison’s Mormon brother, John, tracks her down in her small beach town, she’s anything but pleased. John is eager to reconnect with her, but she remains wary of his religion, as well as the other Mormons in her town. Madison’s brother is the least of her concerns, as she instead worries about the hot advances of her crush, Jean Pierre; her cruel best friend, Kailie; and her callous mother, who spends more time in her art studio than in her role as a parent. Madison faces these problems as a martyr. When Kailie ruthlessly hacks into Madison’s Facebook account, provoking another girl to give Madison two black eyes, Madison demurs: “I know Kailie’s felt this banged up and worse, emotionally, but she bottles it up inside. People only see the carefree front she puts up.” Just when readers may find this sort of helpless behavior cloying, Madison accepts help. Mormonism becomes a magnet in the story, drawing Madison in not for its religion, but for its members, like the kind and handsome Carson and the town freak, Alex Katsumoto, who goes from being a misunderstood mute “psycho” to the answer to all of Madison’s problems. John gives his love and attention to Madison, gradually becoming the sanctuary she needs, despite Madison’s initial resistance. She must learn to rely on these new friends and allies as she finds herself working to save Kailie from an abusive situation and her own mother from destitution. Through these challenges, Madison becomes the strong and compassionate narrator that lacks for the majority of the story. Adults are for the most part shockingly terrible people, creating an element of disbelief that things could get so bad for these teens without more immediate intervention or consequence. The novel aims for drama and achieves just that, although the level of many characters’ cruelty towards Madison is often over-the-top; a lesser menace would have sufficed.
A fast-paced blend of high-stakes drama and average teenage concerns (sex, appearance, friends), capped with a welcome message of hope.Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4791-2029-1
Page Count: 264
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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