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Woodsong
A LIFE AS EXCITING AS FICTION
Gary Paulsen, three-time Newbery Honor author, is no stranger to adventure. He has flown off the back of a dogsled and down a frozen waterfall to near disaster, and waited for a giant bear to seal his fate with one slap of a claw. He has led a team of sled dogs toward the Alaskan Mountain Range in an Iditarod -- the grueling, 1,180-mile dogsled race -- hallucinating from lack of sleep, but he determined to finish.
Here, in vivid detail, Paulsen recounts several of the remarkable experiences that shaped his life and inspired his award-winning writing.
A School Library Journal Best Book
A Booklist Editors' Choice
Gary Paulsen, three-time Newbery Honor author, is no stranger to adventure. He has flown off the back of a dogsled and down a frozen waterfall to near disaster, and waited for a giant bear to seal his fate with one slap of a claw. He has led a team of sled dogs toward the Alaskan Mountain Range in an Iditarod -- the grueling, 1,180-mile dogsled race -- hallucinating from lack of sleep, but he determined to finish.
Here, in vivid detail, Paulsen recounts several of the remarkable experiences that shaped his life and inspired his award-winning writing.
A School Library Journal Best Book
A Booklist Editors' Choice
132 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
About the author
Gary Paulsen
348 books3,684 followersGary James Paulsen was an American writer of children's and young adult fiction, best known for coming-of-age stories about the wilderness. He was the author of more than 200 books and wrote more than 200 magazine articles and short stories, and several plays, all primarily for teenagers. He won the Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association in 1997 for his lifetime contribution in writing for teens.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 565 reviews
July 5, 2015
Listened to it on audiobook read by the author and it was great. Absolutely loved it. Paulsen was one of my favorite authors as a child and I am glad to see that my trust in him as an author was well-deserved. The descriptions of the cold were so chilling and unsettling that I had to turn this off a couple of times, but the honest tone about the brutal world of dogsledding made it all worthwhile.
I also deeply appreciated the mantra that Paulsen hammers home in this story -- the "I didn't know how little I actually knew about this subject, and I was an idiot. I know more now but I'm still an idiot." Something about that basic humility in the face of nature is so refreshing and so true. I definitely did not want to hear about some white guy trying to get back in touch with the wilderness and pretending he was Iron Will along the way; no no, this was just the right balance of self-deprecation and respect for wilderness.
I also deeply appreciated the mantra that Paulsen hammers home in this story -- the "I didn't know how little I actually knew about this subject, and I was an idiot. I know more now but I'm still an idiot." Something about that basic humility in the face of nature is so refreshing and so true. I definitely did not want to hear about some white guy trying to get back in touch with the wilderness and pretending he was Iron Will along the way; no no, this was just the right balance of self-deprecation and respect for wilderness.
November 6, 2020
At the height of his acclaim in the mid-1980s and into the '90s, three-time Newbery Honoree Gary Paulsen was compared to some of the finest names in the history of American children's literature. Not only that, but the comparisons were to a diverse array of accomplished writers, indicating a versatility perhaps unequalled among his contemporaries. There was likeness drawn to the legendary Jack London, whose prolific output and sensitivity to the natural world's underlying wisdom was on a similar level as Gary Paulsen's. The Master himself, Robert Cormier, was occasionally brought into the Gary Paulsen conversation. Perhaps never has there been an author for teens who outperformed his peers as convincingly as Robert Cormier, but if anyone active after Cormier's death in the year 2000 had a small piece of his genius within them, it was Gary Paulsen, as evidenced by books such as The Rifle and Paintings from the Cave: Three Novellas. Even Paula Fox's name was invoked in discussions of Gary Paulsen's excellence, a Newbery Medal winner whose crossover success between children's lit, young-adult novels, and adult fiction was unsurpassed by all who sought to gain audience with the three distinct demographics. Gary Paulsen's talent placed him in the company of three of the very best to ever ply the trade, each comparison made with a different aspect in mind of his award-winning genius.
Woodsong is as offbeat a novel as any penned by Gary Paulsen, intended for kids and teens yet featuring a protagonist in his late thirties and older. It's the depth of philosophical discovery that makes this book better suited to young readers, a quality of thought that demands an audience not fully formed in their view of the world, open to being shaped by the experiential knowledge Gary Paulsen gained from the ways of nature. When we come upon Paulsen at the start of Woodsong he's already an apt outdoorsman, capable of taking care of himself, his family, and his many domesticated animals in the distressing cold of where they live in northern Minnesota. After the government issues a bounty on beavers to help control their destructive population, Paulsen establishes a trapline route across a fifty mile radius near his home, and begins raising dogs to pull his sled through the snowy land so he can regularly check his beaver traps. Purchasing the dogs ushers in a new era for Paulsen, whose moderate success as a published author hasn't earned him great wealth, leaving him dependent on the money from beaver pelts to support his family. The sled dogs will teach Paulsen life truths that haven't made their mark on him yet, existential realities he probably never could have accepted apart from time spent with unfettered wildlife, animals interacting with their environment and mankind organically, apart from the illusion of inherent human superiority that modern technology projects. Paulsen's dogs will be his spiritual counselors, nourishing his soul as he feeds their bodies and tends to their physical welfare, and this experience is the breakthrough he needed to write stories that captivate the imagination of the public, taking a struggling smalltime writer from the north and vaulting him into a position on par with the all-time greats. Whether working the beaver trapline or later as they trained for and competed in the 1,100+ mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, Paulsen's success became inseparable from that of his dogs, and his greatest literary triumphs could be traced to the meeting of minds between man and majestic canine warrior.
The front cover and plot synopsis of Woodsong indicate it's the story of Paulsen's first Iditarod, but it's more about his early dog-sledding years, raising his team from pups and growing in his own understanding of why they run and the role he plays on the team. The man riding the back of the sled has a crucial job, but he's hardly leader of the pack; that's the head dog's job, studiously evaluating the landscape and electing where to go based equally on instinct and intelligence, not the commands of a human musher with a dubious sense of direction. Paulsen had to be trained when to assert his will and when to back off and let his dogs sort out the situation, and his proficiency as a musher gained more solid footing as his discretion improved. Moving a team of hulking sled dogs hundreds of miles a night in temperatures dipping as low as minus forty, fifty, or sixty degrees is dangerous, but if his dogs were up to the task than he could do it, too. Their example instilled within Paulsen the indomitable spirit of canine nature, a rare gift impossible to develop apart from kinship with the animals in the intimacy of their pack.
Nature isn't a finesse teacher; one learns its lessons quickly or dies, as Brian Robeson finds out in Gary Paulsen's Brian's Saga series. Paulsen is the sink-or-swim student in Woodsong, observing the strange, fearsome beauty of nature and adapting to his own minor role in its vast circle of life. An early run with his dogs leaves an indelible impression on Paulsen for its confrontation with uncensored wildlife death, the inglorious climax of a wolf hunt as the predators track a terrified doe onto an icy lake and tear the animal to shreds while it's still alive to experience its own disemboweling. Paulsen stops his dog team to stare at the savagery of the massacre, gorily described in the rawness of bloody battle, the rending of flesh and entrails and vital organs with carnivorous teeth. This isn't the fascinating game of hunter and hunted shown on television, crude violence carefully edited out of the footage. This is real wilderness eat-or-be-eaten, and Paulsen is sickened by it. But thinking back on what he witnessed and how he reacted, Paulsen sees that his revulsion for the wolves is the only element that didn't belong in the equation, him carrying his prejudices of modern human civilization into the natural world and expecting animals to follow the rules he unconsciously set for them. Wolves are wolves, predators knowing only the drive to kill and eat, kill and eat however possible, with no concern for their prey or if their technique in bringing the creature down looks pretty. It was unfair of Paulsen to demand the wolves conform to his expectations, an uninvolved species peering in on the ancient art of the hunt and judging it. "I began to understand that they are not wrong or right—they just are. Wolves don't know they are wolves. That's a name we have put on them, something we have done. I do not know how wolves think of themselves, nor does anybody, but I did know and still know that it was wrong to think they should be the way I wanted them to be." What does this mean for all of life, extending beyond the animal kingdom? Its implications for the view humans take of one another is sobering, asking us to reconsider what we think of individuals who deviate from the code of conduct written by mainstream society, demanding they adhere to those values or be branded monsters who deserve to be put down for their crimes against decency. But does the predatory human differ from the wolf chasing down deer and ripping them to bloody bits in the wild, caring only to satiate the natural craving within their own breasts? Is it fair to deem such a person worthless or wicked and condemn them to incarceration or death if all they're doing is being themselves, wolves who don't know they're wolves and couldn't do anything to change it even if they were aware? Gary Paulsen's anecdote is loaded with implications that deserve honest examination. It could occupy the thoughtful reader's mind for a long time on a number of levels, and if you're reading Woodsong for the first time, get used to it: this quality of food for thought fills the book from start to finish.
"Fear comes in many forms but perhaps the worst scare is the one that isn't anticipated; the one that isn't really known about until it's there. A sudden fear. The unexpected."
—Woodsong, P. 36
Once Paulsen gets the hang of driving his sled dogs, the feeling is incredible, and thrillingly captured by the evocative sensuality of Gary Paulsen's tight, immediate prose. He wrote Woodsong at the peak of his career, and it clearly shows. Paulsen speaks of his lead dog Storm with fierce admiration and affection, delving deeply into the story of a night when Paulsen's early lack of experience with sled dogs led to a blunder that threatened Storm's life. Miles from home and bleeding rectally at an alarming rate, Storm ignores his own internal wound and refuses to be pampered while the rest of the dogs run, frantically resisting Paulsen's attempts to take him onto the sled and tend to his bleeding. Paulsen helplessly watches the life ebb from Storm with every fresh burst of blood onto the pearly snow, knowing he has to get this animal home immediately or Storm will perish because of Paulsen's inability to properly care for him. The blood horrifies Paulsen, but to Storm it's nothing, certainly no reason to abandon his sled team to do all the work while he rests. Having no other choice, Paulsen reties Storm to the sled and starts for home, resigned to this being the dog's farewell run. In hindsight, however, Paulsen sees the lesson Storm imparted to him that night, one he had to learn if Paulsen were to become an effective driver of the sled. "To Storm, it was all as nothing. The blood, the anxiety I felt, the horror of it meant as little to Storm as the blood from the deer on the snow had meant to the wolves. It was part of his life and if he could obey the one drive, the drive to be in the team and pull, then nothing else mattered." Storm's lesson is as applicable to human society as the lesson of the wolves, a clearheaded observation of anxiety and how we allow it to cripple us because of our heightened human intellect. We fear blood; we fear hurt, worry, sadness, and grief so much, keeping it as far away as possible, dashing to the other side of the street to avoid it, fleeing when we think we see its approach, that we sometimes forget to live life without regret. We lock ourselves indoors at the mere hint of fear's shadow, and thus miss seeing the possible beauty of what happens next, whether or not our anxiety comes to pass. It's vital to not always run from the threat of blood, to acknowledge our fear of taking damage physically, psychologically, emotionally, socially, or on any front, and accept that living a full life means surviving terrible trauma now and then, trauma we see coming miles in advance and sudden scares that leave us badly shaken. No one wants to be hurt, but if you're alive it's going to happen, and repeatedly. If we acknowledge that to ourselves and resolve to keep running despite the blood, following the course we were meant to travel and bravely allowing whatever will be to be, we open ourselves to live unencumbered by fear, to feel satisfied that we ran our hardest and lived life to the max no matter how it turns out in the end. We can't let fear deter us from participating in the race. Paulsen never could have learned this truth in such unforgettable fashion apart from Storm, who had yet one more major lesson to teach him before his life was through.
Paulsen was saved by his dog team more than once on those bitter cold nights in woodsy Minnesota, flying over snow moguls and rocky shelves, through towering forest greenery and down mountain ledges that imperiled the lives of man and dog if they didn't proceed with due caution. As a newbie musher, Paulsen occasionally didn't take the wilderness seriously enough, and it was left to his dogs to bail him out. After one such occurrence when the tenacity and allegiance of a sled dog named Obeah was the only reason Paulsen lived, he began seeing the advantages dogs have over humans, especially their closeness as a pack that people have largely eschewed in favor of independence. "I knew that somewhere in the dogs, in their humor and the way they thought, they had great, old knowledge; they had something we had lost. And the dogs could teach me." It's the openhearted quest for this wisdom that deepens Paulsen's character and insight as a writer, pushing him to discover hidden truths within himself. It's what compels him to eventually sign on for the Iditarod: not a driving desire to best the competition and finish in the money, but to better know himself and his team of canine companions, to live without limit and feel what it means to be a momentary part of teeming humanity on this earth, with no modern distractions to keep him from his goal. The Iditarod is the place to do all that, but running the race will be much harder than even Paulsen realizes.
Woodsong is really a collection of related short stories leading to a somewhat longer concluding narrative about Paulsen's Iditarod experience, but I want to talk about two more of the earlier short stories before wrapping up my review. Paulsen indicates in the opening chapters of the book that he's personally opposed to animal trapping even though that's how he got his start running sled dogs, but it's his explanation of an incident between his dogs that finally tells why he stopped trapping. Columbia was a favorite sled dog of Paulsen's, an animal of tremendous personality, and one day as Paulsen observed Columbia with a less sophisticated dog named Olaf, cleverly teasing Olaf with a morsel of food, Paulsen realized that Columbia had a sense of humor. If a dog is capable of playing pranks, of showing that complexity of personality, then other animals must be, as well. For Paulsen, that was the last straw when it came to trapping. Personality is part of what makes us human, gives us pause before causing serious harm to a consciousness like our own, and the idea that animals could demonstrate human personality traits robbed Paulsen of any desire to kill and skin them for profit. Who can slaughter a creature who laughs and understands and has a sense of irony? But the lingering lesson Paulsen is taught by his dogs in Woodsong, far and away the most powerful lesson of the book, the part that brings me to give Woodsong three and a half stars and round it up to four, is the story of Storm's twilight years, the fading of a wondrous animal after his retirement and the final, emotionally charged scene he shares with his owner. This simple anecdote blows the doors off Woodsong, spirits us away to an isolated patch of rural Minnesota where the bond between man and man's best friend can still be as poignant as any, where an indefatigable sled dog warrior can lay down his head and know it is finished, that he ran the races he was meant to and entered that eternal light with the best commendation possible: as a Good Dog, the hero of the man who raised him. The direction he walked into that light didn't make so big a difference, Storm understood at last. And he'd find a way to assure Paulsen of that, too.
There's a blurb from Kirkus Reviews on the back of my copy of Woodsong that puts it succinctly: "Paulsen's best book yet." With The Rifle yet several years from release, that may well have been true; I say Woodsong is superior even to Hatchet and The Winter Room. Many exceptionally substantive teen novels require four or five hundred pages to get their message across, but Gary Paulsen has fine-tuned the art of conveying his point in not much more than a hundred pages, and usually does it better than books quintuple that length. Woodsong is a marvelous junior novel that leaves me puzzled why only two Newberys were handed out in 1991—the Medal to Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee and a single Honor to Avi's The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle—when a book as deserving as Woodsong was eligible for the awards. I wouldn't rank it ahead of either winner, but surely it earned a Newbery Honor spot of its own. Regardless of awards, Woodsong should maintain its power to sway hearts in any time, place, or culture, a novel packed with hard questions and transcendent storytelling, an immutable anthem of what makes us alive and what defines us as human. What a book. What an author. What a life.
Woodsong is as offbeat a novel as any penned by Gary Paulsen, intended for kids and teens yet featuring a protagonist in his late thirties and older. It's the depth of philosophical discovery that makes this book better suited to young readers, a quality of thought that demands an audience not fully formed in their view of the world, open to being shaped by the experiential knowledge Gary Paulsen gained from the ways of nature. When we come upon Paulsen at the start of Woodsong he's already an apt outdoorsman, capable of taking care of himself, his family, and his many domesticated animals in the distressing cold of where they live in northern Minnesota. After the government issues a bounty on beavers to help control their destructive population, Paulsen establishes a trapline route across a fifty mile radius near his home, and begins raising dogs to pull his sled through the snowy land so he can regularly check his beaver traps. Purchasing the dogs ushers in a new era for Paulsen, whose moderate success as a published author hasn't earned him great wealth, leaving him dependent on the money from beaver pelts to support his family. The sled dogs will teach Paulsen life truths that haven't made their mark on him yet, existential realities he probably never could have accepted apart from time spent with unfettered wildlife, animals interacting with their environment and mankind organically, apart from the illusion of inherent human superiority that modern technology projects. Paulsen's dogs will be his spiritual counselors, nourishing his soul as he feeds their bodies and tends to their physical welfare, and this experience is the breakthrough he needed to write stories that captivate the imagination of the public, taking a struggling smalltime writer from the north and vaulting him into a position on par with the all-time greats. Whether working the beaver trapline or later as they trained for and competed in the 1,100+ mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, Paulsen's success became inseparable from that of his dogs, and his greatest literary triumphs could be traced to the meeting of minds between man and majestic canine warrior.
The front cover and plot synopsis of Woodsong indicate it's the story of Paulsen's first Iditarod, but it's more about his early dog-sledding years, raising his team from pups and growing in his own understanding of why they run and the role he plays on the team. The man riding the back of the sled has a crucial job, but he's hardly leader of the pack; that's the head dog's job, studiously evaluating the landscape and electing where to go based equally on instinct and intelligence, not the commands of a human musher with a dubious sense of direction. Paulsen had to be trained when to assert his will and when to back off and let his dogs sort out the situation, and his proficiency as a musher gained more solid footing as his discretion improved. Moving a team of hulking sled dogs hundreds of miles a night in temperatures dipping as low as minus forty, fifty, or sixty degrees is dangerous, but if his dogs were up to the task than he could do it, too. Their example instilled within Paulsen the indomitable spirit of canine nature, a rare gift impossible to develop apart from kinship with the animals in the intimacy of their pack.
Nature isn't a finesse teacher; one learns its lessons quickly or dies, as Brian Robeson finds out in Gary Paulsen's Brian's Saga series. Paulsen is the sink-or-swim student in Woodsong, observing the strange, fearsome beauty of nature and adapting to his own minor role in its vast circle of life. An early run with his dogs leaves an indelible impression on Paulsen for its confrontation with uncensored wildlife death, the inglorious climax of a wolf hunt as the predators track a terrified doe onto an icy lake and tear the animal to shreds while it's still alive to experience its own disemboweling. Paulsen stops his dog team to stare at the savagery of the massacre, gorily described in the rawness of bloody battle, the rending of flesh and entrails and vital organs with carnivorous teeth. This isn't the fascinating game of hunter and hunted shown on television, crude violence carefully edited out of the footage. This is real wilderness eat-or-be-eaten, and Paulsen is sickened by it. But thinking back on what he witnessed and how he reacted, Paulsen sees that his revulsion for the wolves is the only element that didn't belong in the equation, him carrying his prejudices of modern human civilization into the natural world and expecting animals to follow the rules he unconsciously set for them. Wolves are wolves, predators knowing only the drive to kill and eat, kill and eat however possible, with no concern for their prey or if their technique in bringing the creature down looks pretty. It was unfair of Paulsen to demand the wolves conform to his expectations, an uninvolved species peering in on the ancient art of the hunt and judging it. "I began to understand that they are not wrong or right—they just are. Wolves don't know they are wolves. That's a name we have put on them, something we have done. I do not know how wolves think of themselves, nor does anybody, but I did know and still know that it was wrong to think they should be the way I wanted them to be." What does this mean for all of life, extending beyond the animal kingdom? Its implications for the view humans take of one another is sobering, asking us to reconsider what we think of individuals who deviate from the code of conduct written by mainstream society, demanding they adhere to those values or be branded monsters who deserve to be put down for their crimes against decency. But does the predatory human differ from the wolf chasing down deer and ripping them to bloody bits in the wild, caring only to satiate the natural craving within their own breasts? Is it fair to deem such a person worthless or wicked and condemn them to incarceration or death if all they're doing is being themselves, wolves who don't know they're wolves and couldn't do anything to change it even if they were aware? Gary Paulsen's anecdote is loaded with implications that deserve honest examination. It could occupy the thoughtful reader's mind for a long time on a number of levels, and if you're reading Woodsong for the first time, get used to it: this quality of food for thought fills the book from start to finish.
"Fear comes in many forms but perhaps the worst scare is the one that isn't anticipated; the one that isn't really known about until it's there. A sudden fear. The unexpected."
—Woodsong, P. 36
Once Paulsen gets the hang of driving his sled dogs, the feeling is incredible, and thrillingly captured by the evocative sensuality of Gary Paulsen's tight, immediate prose. He wrote Woodsong at the peak of his career, and it clearly shows. Paulsen speaks of his lead dog Storm with fierce admiration and affection, delving deeply into the story of a night when Paulsen's early lack of experience with sled dogs led to a blunder that threatened Storm's life. Miles from home and bleeding rectally at an alarming rate, Storm ignores his own internal wound and refuses to be pampered while the rest of the dogs run, frantically resisting Paulsen's attempts to take him onto the sled and tend to his bleeding. Paulsen helplessly watches the life ebb from Storm with every fresh burst of blood onto the pearly snow, knowing he has to get this animal home immediately or Storm will perish because of Paulsen's inability to properly care for him. The blood horrifies Paulsen, but to Storm it's nothing, certainly no reason to abandon his sled team to do all the work while he rests. Having no other choice, Paulsen reties Storm to the sled and starts for home, resigned to this being the dog's farewell run. In hindsight, however, Paulsen sees the lesson Storm imparted to him that night, one he had to learn if Paulsen were to become an effective driver of the sled. "To Storm, it was all as nothing. The blood, the anxiety I felt, the horror of it meant as little to Storm as the blood from the deer on the snow had meant to the wolves. It was part of his life and if he could obey the one drive, the drive to be in the team and pull, then nothing else mattered." Storm's lesson is as applicable to human society as the lesson of the wolves, a clearheaded observation of anxiety and how we allow it to cripple us because of our heightened human intellect. We fear blood; we fear hurt, worry, sadness, and grief so much, keeping it as far away as possible, dashing to the other side of the street to avoid it, fleeing when we think we see its approach, that we sometimes forget to live life without regret. We lock ourselves indoors at the mere hint of fear's shadow, and thus miss seeing the possible beauty of what happens next, whether or not our anxiety comes to pass. It's vital to not always run from the threat of blood, to acknowledge our fear of taking damage physically, psychologically, emotionally, socially, or on any front, and accept that living a full life means surviving terrible trauma now and then, trauma we see coming miles in advance and sudden scares that leave us badly shaken. No one wants to be hurt, but if you're alive it's going to happen, and repeatedly. If we acknowledge that to ourselves and resolve to keep running despite the blood, following the course we were meant to travel and bravely allowing whatever will be to be, we open ourselves to live unencumbered by fear, to feel satisfied that we ran our hardest and lived life to the max no matter how it turns out in the end. We can't let fear deter us from participating in the race. Paulsen never could have learned this truth in such unforgettable fashion apart from Storm, who had yet one more major lesson to teach him before his life was through.
Paulsen was saved by his dog team more than once on those bitter cold nights in woodsy Minnesota, flying over snow moguls and rocky shelves, through towering forest greenery and down mountain ledges that imperiled the lives of man and dog if they didn't proceed with due caution. As a newbie musher, Paulsen occasionally didn't take the wilderness seriously enough, and it was left to his dogs to bail him out. After one such occurrence when the tenacity and allegiance of a sled dog named Obeah was the only reason Paulsen lived, he began seeing the advantages dogs have over humans, especially their closeness as a pack that people have largely eschewed in favor of independence. "I knew that somewhere in the dogs, in their humor and the way they thought, they had great, old knowledge; they had something we had lost. And the dogs could teach me." It's the openhearted quest for this wisdom that deepens Paulsen's character and insight as a writer, pushing him to discover hidden truths within himself. It's what compels him to eventually sign on for the Iditarod: not a driving desire to best the competition and finish in the money, but to better know himself and his team of canine companions, to live without limit and feel what it means to be a momentary part of teeming humanity on this earth, with no modern distractions to keep him from his goal. The Iditarod is the place to do all that, but running the race will be much harder than even Paulsen realizes.
Woodsong is really a collection of related short stories leading to a somewhat longer concluding narrative about Paulsen's Iditarod experience, but I want to talk about two more of the earlier short stories before wrapping up my review. Paulsen indicates in the opening chapters of the book that he's personally opposed to animal trapping even though that's how he got his start running sled dogs, but it's his explanation of an incident between his dogs that finally tells why he stopped trapping. Columbia was a favorite sled dog of Paulsen's, an animal of tremendous personality, and one day as Paulsen observed Columbia with a less sophisticated dog named Olaf, cleverly teasing Olaf with a morsel of food, Paulsen realized that Columbia had a sense of humor. If a dog is capable of playing pranks, of showing that complexity of personality, then other animals must be, as well. For Paulsen, that was the last straw when it came to trapping. Personality is part of what makes us human, gives us pause before causing serious harm to a consciousness like our own, and the idea that animals could demonstrate human personality traits robbed Paulsen of any desire to kill and skin them for profit. Who can slaughter a creature who laughs and understands and has a sense of irony? But the lingering lesson Paulsen is taught by his dogs in Woodsong, far and away the most powerful lesson of the book, the part that brings me to give Woodsong three and a half stars and round it up to four, is the story of Storm's twilight years, the fading of a wondrous animal after his retirement and the final, emotionally charged scene he shares with his owner. This simple anecdote blows the doors off Woodsong, spirits us away to an isolated patch of rural Minnesota where the bond between man and man's best friend can still be as poignant as any, where an indefatigable sled dog warrior can lay down his head and know it is finished, that he ran the races he was meant to and entered that eternal light with the best commendation possible: as a Good Dog, the hero of the man who raised him. The direction he walked into that light didn't make so big a difference, Storm understood at last. And he'd find a way to assure Paulsen of that, too.
There's a blurb from Kirkus Reviews on the back of my copy of Woodsong that puts it succinctly: "Paulsen's best book yet." With The Rifle yet several years from release, that may well have been true; I say Woodsong is superior even to Hatchet and The Winter Room. Many exceptionally substantive teen novels require four or five hundred pages to get their message across, but Gary Paulsen has fine-tuned the art of conveying his point in not much more than a hundred pages, and usually does it better than books quintuple that length. Woodsong is a marvelous junior novel that leaves me puzzled why only two Newberys were handed out in 1991—the Medal to Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee and a single Honor to Avi's The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle—when a book as deserving as Woodsong was eligible for the awards. I wouldn't rank it ahead of either winner, but surely it earned a Newbery Honor spot of its own. Regardless of awards, Woodsong should maintain its power to sway hearts in any time, place, or culture, a novel packed with hard questions and transcendent storytelling, an immutable anthem of what makes us alive and what defines us as human. What a book. What an author. What a life.
April 27, 2013
This is very good, but in some ways, a challenging read for what appears to be a children's book. The first half of the book is a series of short essays Paulsen wrote about training his sled dogs. He writes about odd things that happened to him while on runs and in the woods, the brutality of nature and what his dogs taught him. Some of the essays, actually, most of them, have one thing or another that was difficult to read. He really doesn't shy away from the ugly side of the natural world. That's why this short book took me a while to get through- I loved his descriptions of his dogs, and their funny sides, their wisdom and strength, and he draws so much from his experiences with the dogs, but there were a few scenes that made me face a side of nature I don't usually like to think about- wolves feasting on a deer, the death of a beloved dog, etc. The book is also funny at times and a couple of choice stories and phrases had me laughing out loud.
The second half of the book is in seventeen parts, one part for each day of Paulsen's first stab at the Iditarod. This could have been a book in itself, the chapters are brief and actually I wish he would have drawn this out more and made it its own book. He's a children's author, but I can't decide what to make of this book because although it is appears to be like a children's book (or, like his other books, I should say), and a sixth grader could read it, some of the things he write about are so upsetting, and so dark, that I personally think it would be hard for a younger child to read and process. Maybe I'm just sensitive where animals are concerned. The chapter about his beloved dog who could not turn east when he died was just heartbreaking.
I also have a soft spot for Gary Paulsen because when I was in sixth grade, we read Hatchet, and I decided to write to him. At the time I believe he was living in Minnesota. He actually wrote back to me with a hand-signed, personal letter. I will never forget that!
The second half of the book is in seventeen parts, one part for each day of Paulsen's first stab at the Iditarod. This could have been a book in itself, the chapters are brief and actually I wish he would have drawn this out more and made it its own book. He's a children's author, but I can't decide what to make of this book because although it is appears to be like a children's book (or, like his other books, I should say), and a sixth grader could read it, some of the things he write about are so upsetting, and so dark, that I personally think it would be hard for a younger child to read and process. Maybe I'm just sensitive where animals are concerned. The chapter about his beloved dog who could not turn east when he died was just heartbreaking.
I also have a soft spot for Gary Paulsen because when I was in sixth grade, we read Hatchet, and I decided to write to him. At the time I believe he was living in Minnesota. He actually wrote back to me with a hand-signed, personal letter. I will never forget that!
February 7, 2022
This book was the best book I've ever read so far! It's about Gary and him sled dog racing the Iditarod, and training for it. This book is awesome and would definitely recommend it to people who absolutely love Gary Paulsen's work. Also wold recommend to people who like in book when people die or get badly injured, because I love those books!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 11, 2019
Another book I had to read for school that I am certain I would have enjoyed much more if the school had not made such a chore out of the book with all their dumbass assignments.
I was an avid reader back then and even now, and nothing ruins the reading experience faster than it being made a chore of. It's a shame because although it's been a while (a long while!) since I read this book, I found some parts of it thrilling/enjoyable. I may give this another read some day and be able to really enjoy it the second time around.
I was an avid reader back then and even now, and nothing ruins the reading experience faster than it being made a chore of. It's a shame because although it's been a while (a long while!) since I read this book, I found some parts of it thrilling/enjoyable. I may give this another read some day and be able to really enjoy it the second time around.
March 7, 2011
This book was amazing! It tells about the relationships of most people and pets, especially dogs. This also tells about how author Gary paulsen has competed in the iditarod and all the things he went through about his dogs and his experience with iditarod, amazing! A must read for everyone of all ages!
March 8, 2009
It's a good book but some of it is very descriptive for littler kids.
December 10, 2018
The title of my book is Woodsong. The author of this book is Gary Paulson.
“I began to understand that they are not wrong or right—they just are. Wolves don't know they are wolves. That's a name we have put on them, something we have done. I do not know how wolves think of themselves, nor does anybody, but I did know and still know that it was wrong to think they should be the way I wanted them to be.” ― Gary Paulsen, Woodsong. That is a quote from the amazing book “Woodsong”.
The book Woodsong is a amazing book. The main characters in the book include Bryan, Bryan’s daughter who the book does not name, and Bryan’s wife who the book also doesn’t name. The theme of the book is to enjoy nature. The setting takes place in northern Minnesota, during winter time. The conflict in the exposition of the book is that the main character “Bryan” runs into a pack of wolves while dog sledding, and the pack of wolves rips a part a deer. Bryan can’t do anything about this happening. The genre of this book is realistic fiction. I know this because this did not actually happen, but it could possibly happen to someone. Also this is realistic fiction because the time period is modern day.
The internal conflict that the character is facing in the book is man vs self because the main character comes across abandoned chicken eggs on he side of the rhode, and he is not sure about what to do. The external conflict in this book is man vs nature because when the main character is dog sledding the temperature drops down to about thirty degrees below zero, and he still has to dog sled twenty miles to get back home.
I really liked the book. There was always an interesting part, and you never wanted to stop reading. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes animals, and also to people who are in middle school and above.
“I began to understand that they are not wrong or right—they just are. Wolves don't know they are wolves. That's a name we have put on them, something we have done. I do not know how wolves think of themselves, nor does anybody, but I did know and still know that it was wrong to think they should be the way I wanted them to be.” ― Gary Paulsen, Woodsong. That is a quote from the amazing book “Woodsong”.
The book Woodsong is a amazing book. The main characters in the book include Bryan, Bryan’s daughter who the book does not name, and Bryan’s wife who the book also doesn’t name. The theme of the book is to enjoy nature. The setting takes place in northern Minnesota, during winter time. The conflict in the exposition of the book is that the main character “Bryan” runs into a pack of wolves while dog sledding, and the pack of wolves rips a part a deer. Bryan can’t do anything about this happening. The genre of this book is realistic fiction. I know this because this did not actually happen, but it could possibly happen to someone. Also this is realistic fiction because the time period is modern day.
The internal conflict that the character is facing in the book is man vs self because the main character comes across abandoned chicken eggs on he side of the rhode, and he is not sure about what to do. The external conflict in this book is man vs nature because when the main character is dog sledding the temperature drops down to about thirty degrees below zero, and he still has to dog sled twenty miles to get back home.
I really liked the book. There was always an interesting part, and you never wanted to stop reading. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes animals, and also to people who are in middle school and above.
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December 4, 2022In book Woodsong by Gary Paulsen, he is describing the lessons he has learned about himself and nature while running his sled dogs through the wilderness Alaska and Minnesota. There is two parts to this book. The first part is about the relationship between Paulsen and his dogs. It also talks about the knew things he has learned about the wilderness. The second part is about his experience with his first annual dog race in Alaska called the Iditarod. The theme of the book is the worthiness of animals and the difficulties of predicting how yourself is going to feel. First, I liked that Gary Paulsen wrote the book because he is one of my favorite authors. Second, I liked that there was two parts to the book. It split the information that was in the book up very well. Third, I liked that the book was a biography. The genre biography is one of my favorite genres. Another thing I liked was that the book goes throughout his whole experience with sled dogs. It goes from the start of his journey to the end. Lastly, I liked how Paulsen contrasted animals and humans throughout the whole book.
October 15, 2021
I enjoyed this memoir of short stories by Gary Paulsen and his experiences training sled dogs and running the Iditarod race (which he did TWICE!). It was a cool collection of stories and it makes the subject matter of his books make perfect sense. The man knows the wilderness. I also just enjoyed hearing about his life with the dogs. As a kid, one of my dreams was to move to Alaska and raise sled dogs. 😂 Definitely not a dream that came true, but I still love reading about it. Also, Gary Paulsen himself reads the audiobook for Woodsong so that was nice. He's not a bad reader.
November 2, 2017
I was enchanted by this book about the man behind all of those famous survival stories! I loved how Paulsen described a portion of his life through turning-points that he experienced while spending time with the natural world. Certain of his experiences made me cringe a bit, and I marveled at his courage and stamina in situations I certainly wouldn't have known how to handle--no wonder "Hatchet" and "The Transall Saga" feel so realistic!
September 30, 2023
Why not 5 stars for a 2.5 hour audiobook by one of my fav authors about running the Iditarod and other things dog and forest-related, WHILE hiking by myself in the forest!!
May 22, 2018
Personal Response: I read the book Woodsong by Gary Paulsen. I really enjoyed this book, because it was about what happens while running a dog sled team. I also enjoyed reading this book, because I love the way the author made the book come alive. I can really picture what is happened in the book, and I liked reading a book that showed this.
Plot: The beginning of the book started out when the author, Gary Paulsen, encountered a wolf pack chasing a doe. The doe ran onto the ice and fell through. The wolves then pounced on her and ripped her insides out while she sat helplessly waiting to die. The author shouted for them to stop, but they did not listen. He then realized that nature was a thing that no one could control. He lived with his son in a cabin without plumbing or electricity. They lived in Minnesota, because they both liked the cold. He got a job from the state as a trapper, and he caught a few beaver once in awhile. Eventually, he realized that trapping was not for him, and became a musher for a dog sled team. He and his dog team would train hours for the Iditarod race. Day and night he and his team would train for this race. While they were training, they encountered many random events. One of the events was when a moose tackled the author off a sled! A few months passed, and Paulsen went to attempt the Iditarod. The Iditarod was a grueling course with many obstacles to overcome. One of these obstacles was when he had to cross a large patch of ice. He saw and heard stories about many people falling through, and he did not want that to happen to him. Paulsen, eventually, overcame all these obstacles and finally finished the race. All he wanted to do was finish the race, and he achieved his goal. His wife was waiting for him at the end of the race to congratulate him. After everything that happened, he said he would do it all over again.
Characterization: The main character in this book would be the author himself. He was a middle aged man who enjoyed nature greatly. He disliked being with people and just enjoyed being by himself. He was basically the only human character in the book. The author and main character was the protagonist. In the beginning of the book, he really did not understand nature and what it entailed. He lived in upper Minnesota and got hired by the state to be a trapper. He caught a few animals here and there, but he was not enjoying it. He had a passion for dogs and wanted to started a sled team. Throughout the book, he learned that nature had a course that he could not control. He learned that everything had a reason to live. The antagonist is this book was the weather. The weather caused major problems for the main character in this book. While he was training, a very bad storm started. He was not prepared for this, and he had to improvise. He set up a tent and tried making a fire. It eventually worked, and everyone got out safely. The weather caused major adversity for the main character throughout the entire story.
Setting; The main setting of this book was in Minnesota in the woods. Most of the stories that the author told were from where he trained in Minnesota. This played a crucial part, because he needed to live in a cold area to train his dogs for the Iditarod. Another setting in this book was the Iditarod itself. He never described when or where he ran the Iditarod, but it went through a plethora of cities. Most of them were in Alaska and Canada. This played a large role, because this is what Paulsen trained for throughout the whole book.
Thematic Connection: The theme of this book was to be one with nature and show compassion to it. There were points in this book when Paulsen could have killed animals but did not. He did this because he understood that the animals in nature had to do what they needed to to survive. He also realized that predators have to win sometimes, otherwise they will die. He learned to treat animals with more respect and show compassion for them.
Recommendation: I think this book would be great for anyone that is age 12 or older. Anyone younger might not understand parts of the book. There are also some gorey parts that young readers would not want to read. Men may be able to relate to the main character more since Paulsen is a male. I still believe that females would enjoy this book. People who love and understand animals would like this book. I like animals myself, and I liked the book the more I read it.
Plot: The beginning of the book started out when the author, Gary Paulsen, encountered a wolf pack chasing a doe. The doe ran onto the ice and fell through. The wolves then pounced on her and ripped her insides out while she sat helplessly waiting to die. The author shouted for them to stop, but they did not listen. He then realized that nature was a thing that no one could control. He lived with his son in a cabin without plumbing or electricity. They lived in Minnesota, because they both liked the cold. He got a job from the state as a trapper, and he caught a few beaver once in awhile. Eventually, he realized that trapping was not for him, and became a musher for a dog sled team. He and his dog team would train hours for the Iditarod race. Day and night he and his team would train for this race. While they were training, they encountered many random events. One of the events was when a moose tackled the author off a sled! A few months passed, and Paulsen went to attempt the Iditarod. The Iditarod was a grueling course with many obstacles to overcome. One of these obstacles was when he had to cross a large patch of ice. He saw and heard stories about many people falling through, and he did not want that to happen to him. Paulsen, eventually, overcame all these obstacles and finally finished the race. All he wanted to do was finish the race, and he achieved his goal. His wife was waiting for him at the end of the race to congratulate him. After everything that happened, he said he would do it all over again.
Characterization: The main character in this book would be the author himself. He was a middle aged man who enjoyed nature greatly. He disliked being with people and just enjoyed being by himself. He was basically the only human character in the book. The author and main character was the protagonist. In the beginning of the book, he really did not understand nature and what it entailed. He lived in upper Minnesota and got hired by the state to be a trapper. He caught a few animals here and there, but he was not enjoying it. He had a passion for dogs and wanted to started a sled team. Throughout the book, he learned that nature had a course that he could not control. He learned that everything had a reason to live. The antagonist is this book was the weather. The weather caused major problems for the main character in this book. While he was training, a very bad storm started. He was not prepared for this, and he had to improvise. He set up a tent and tried making a fire. It eventually worked, and everyone got out safely. The weather caused major adversity for the main character throughout the entire story.
Setting; The main setting of this book was in Minnesota in the woods. Most of the stories that the author told were from where he trained in Minnesota. This played a crucial part, because he needed to live in a cold area to train his dogs for the Iditarod. Another setting in this book was the Iditarod itself. He never described when or where he ran the Iditarod, but it went through a plethora of cities. Most of them were in Alaska and Canada. This played a large role, because this is what Paulsen trained for throughout the whole book.
Thematic Connection: The theme of this book was to be one with nature and show compassion to it. There were points in this book when Paulsen could have killed animals but did not. He did this because he understood that the animals in nature had to do what they needed to to survive. He also realized that predators have to win sometimes, otherwise they will die. He learned to treat animals with more respect and show compassion for them.
Recommendation: I think this book would be great for anyone that is age 12 or older. Anyone younger might not understand parts of the book. There are also some gorey parts that young readers would not want to read. Men may be able to relate to the main character more since Paulsen is a male. I still believe that females would enjoy this book. People who love and understand animals would like this book. I like animals myself, and I liked the book the more I read it.
April 19, 2013
Woodsong Review
In the book Woodsong by Gary Paulsen, he is the main character and a dog sled leader in the Iditarod race. He loves his dogs so much and is very close with them. They fight through the cold and arctic wilderness and go through tough challenges together. The dogs teach Gary so much throughout the book. They tell him to keep going and to not let things overcome him even if it’s hard to do so. Nothing will stop Gary and his dogs from giving it their all and not giving up.
The leader of the pack and my favorite character would have to be Storm the fearless sled dog. “Storm was an almost classic sled dog” (14). Nothing stops Storm in any situation no matter what the circumstances. Storm teaches Gary like he is a therapist. Gary loves him and gets so much from the tough sled dog. “I didn’t know what questions to ask, or how to ask them, and I would not begin to learn until Storm taught me” (11). Storm is the only dog I’ve ever heard of to teach a human the way he does. The way he is portrayed in the book makes him seem like he’s not a dog. It makes him seem like he is a philosopher. He has the guts to fight through anything in the race.
Another main part of the book is the theme. The theme is that Gary Paulsen is always learning from the dogs. The dogs teach Gary so many valuable lessons which I cannot describe. They communicate with him so well and know what he is feeling. “It is always possible to learn from dogs and in fact the longer I’m with them the more I understand how little I know” (70). The dogs make Gary go deep in thought and really think about things. He figures out the person he really is when he is around the dogs. The dogs are very caring towards Gary Paulsen and help him out whenever they can. “He was one of the first dogs and taught me the most and as we worked together he came to know me better than perhaps even my own family” (75). The dogs do unimaginable things for Gary and teach him to have great integrity. They make him really value his life so much more and be more caring towards every little aspect. The dogs are like Gary’s little counselors in the pronounced ways they benefit and teach him.
Woodsong is an all right book for the outdoorsman. It has lots of outdoors and nature features in the book. It isn’t a great action filled story though. Throughout the book the story gets off topic and unrelated to the main plot. He wanders off into matters that quite frankly don’t mean anything at all. The book is taking place during a dog race but it doesn’t seem that way half of the time. I give this book a 3 out of 5 rating because of it being very uninteresting at most times and its lack of keeping my attention span. Many other people feel this way as well. I do not recommend this book for any type of pleasure reading.
In the book Woodsong by Gary Paulsen, he is the main character and a dog sled leader in the Iditarod race. He loves his dogs so much and is very close with them. They fight through the cold and arctic wilderness and go through tough challenges together. The dogs teach Gary so much throughout the book. They tell him to keep going and to not let things overcome him even if it’s hard to do so. Nothing will stop Gary and his dogs from giving it their all and not giving up.
The leader of the pack and my favorite character would have to be Storm the fearless sled dog. “Storm was an almost classic sled dog” (14). Nothing stops Storm in any situation no matter what the circumstances. Storm teaches Gary like he is a therapist. Gary loves him and gets so much from the tough sled dog. “I didn’t know what questions to ask, or how to ask them, and I would not begin to learn until Storm taught me” (11). Storm is the only dog I’ve ever heard of to teach a human the way he does. The way he is portrayed in the book makes him seem like he’s not a dog. It makes him seem like he is a philosopher. He has the guts to fight through anything in the race.
Another main part of the book is the theme. The theme is that Gary Paulsen is always learning from the dogs. The dogs teach Gary so many valuable lessons which I cannot describe. They communicate with him so well and know what he is feeling. “It is always possible to learn from dogs and in fact the longer I’m with them the more I understand how little I know” (70). The dogs make Gary go deep in thought and really think about things. He figures out the person he really is when he is around the dogs. The dogs are very caring towards Gary Paulsen and help him out whenever they can. “He was one of the first dogs and taught me the most and as we worked together he came to know me better than perhaps even my own family” (75). The dogs do unimaginable things for Gary and teach him to have great integrity. They make him really value his life so much more and be more caring towards every little aspect. The dogs are like Gary’s little counselors in the pronounced ways they benefit and teach him.
Woodsong is an all right book for the outdoorsman. It has lots of outdoors and nature features in the book. It isn’t a great action filled story though. Throughout the book the story gets off topic and unrelated to the main plot. He wanders off into matters that quite frankly don’t mean anything at all. The book is taking place during a dog race but it doesn’t seem that way half of the time. I give this book a 3 out of 5 rating because of it being very uninteresting at most times and its lack of keeping my attention span. Many other people feel this way as well. I do not recommend this book for any type of pleasure reading.
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May 23, 2016Personal- I thought Woodsong was a great book. I enjoyed the plot of this book. Gary Paulsen talks about his life. He shows grief and happiness. I loved the book overall because the whole time I pictured myself on the sled.
Plot- The story takes place in northern Minnesota. Gary traps and hunts game. He uses a dog team to get around in the back country. He sometimes stays out all night running his trap line. He get's into some predicaments, like falling off a tall ledge and tumbling over a waterfall.
Characterization- Gary Paulsen is the main character. This book is about his life and the ups and down's that he encountered. Gary has a few dog's that he mention's time and time again throughout the book. He introduces Cookie and Storm. Two dogs that Gary learned so very much from.
Setting- The setting takes place in northern Minnesota. He runs the dogs in the winter to avoid heat exhaustion. Gary explains how cold it would get out on the trail, sometimes 40 below zero. The climate got so cold, Gary would have to turn his parka inside out and scrape the ice off. There is old and icy railroad beds that he used to run the dogs. It takes place during the deep winter in February.
Thematic- The lesson Gary wants reader's to understand is never taking life for granted. He used to kill lots of animals, then when he watched how wolves killed deer. He quit trapping and hunting because he thought it was brutal. Gary runs dogs, and he is preparing for the Iditarod.
Recommendation- I recommend this book to anyone that likes the outdoor twist. The storyline is for males mainly that are ages ten and above. There is some graphic imagery in the plot. I give this book a five star rating.
Plot- The story takes place in northern Minnesota. Gary traps and hunts game. He uses a dog team to get around in the back country. He sometimes stays out all night running his trap line. He get's into some predicaments, like falling off a tall ledge and tumbling over a waterfall.
Characterization- Gary Paulsen is the main character. This book is about his life and the ups and down's that he encountered. Gary has a few dog's that he mention's time and time again throughout the book. He introduces Cookie and Storm. Two dogs that Gary learned so very much from.
Setting- The setting takes place in northern Minnesota. He runs the dogs in the winter to avoid heat exhaustion. Gary explains how cold it would get out on the trail, sometimes 40 below zero. The climate got so cold, Gary would have to turn his parka inside out and scrape the ice off. There is old and icy railroad beds that he used to run the dogs. It takes place during the deep winter in February.
Thematic- The lesson Gary wants reader's to understand is never taking life for granted. He used to kill lots of animals, then when he watched how wolves killed deer. He quit trapping and hunting because he thought it was brutal. Gary runs dogs, and he is preparing for the Iditarod.
Recommendation- I recommend this book to anyone that likes the outdoor twist. The storyline is for males mainly that are ages ten and above. There is some graphic imagery in the plot. I give this book a five star rating.
February 24, 2011
I just finished this book and I thought it was ok. The reason why I only gave this book three stars was because it was good, but it could have been better. I think part of the reason that it wasn't my favorite book was because the main person didn't believe in the same things I do.
The main character used to be a big time trapper until he realized the true beauty of nature. That is when he started understanding the way animals think compared to humans. That is when he got big into running sled dogs. He had very many weird realizations in this time. One of those is that he found out what hallucinations are. At times he would hallucinate that there was a man riding in his sled talking to him. At one time he became deathly Ill and a man he hallucinated helped him get home so his wife could care for him.
He finally decided that he wanted to run a team in the Iditarod. He faced very many hardships that could have killed him easily. He again hallucinated a man sitting in his sled jabbering about something that is extremely boring. He nearly went insane listening to him. Although he started to have doubts he finally pulled into the last town where his wife was waiting to greet him.
He ended the book by saying "my dogs and I are excited to run again next year".
The main character used to be a big time trapper until he realized the true beauty of nature. That is when he started understanding the way animals think compared to humans. That is when he got big into running sled dogs. He had very many weird realizations in this time. One of those is that he found out what hallucinations are. At times he would hallucinate that there was a man riding in his sled talking to him. At one time he became deathly Ill and a man he hallucinated helped him get home so his wife could care for him.
He finally decided that he wanted to run a team in the Iditarod. He faced very many hardships that could have killed him easily. He again hallucinated a man sitting in his sled jabbering about something that is extremely boring. He nearly went insane listening to him. Although he started to have doubts he finally pulled into the last town where his wife was waiting to greet him.
He ended the book by saying "my dogs and I are excited to run again next year".
September 4, 2018
Beautiful.
Paulsen has lived an extraordinary life, and he shares a portion of that life in these stories of his adventures with a team of sled dogs that teach him lessons about life. That dogs have much to teach us is his thesis, one explicitly expressed at the end of chapter three wherein he narrates of a terrible accident that sent him flying with his sled (though not the dog team) over a 20 foot frozen waterfall. Badly injured and alone in the wilderness, he would surely die, but his team came back to retrieve him. Once home again (thanks entirely to the dogs) and recuperating, he tell us . . .
" . . . I thought of the dogs. How they came back to help me, perhaps to save me. I knew that somewhere in the dogs, in their humor and the way they thought, they had great, old knowledge; they had something we had lost.
And the dogs could teach me."
If you've never ready Gary Paulsen, your life is missing something meaningful. I only just discovered him, and quickly ordered a half dozen more books. Since Paulsen has written about a hundred books, I have much to look forward to.
Paulsen has lived an extraordinary life, and he shares a portion of that life in these stories of his adventures with a team of sled dogs that teach him lessons about life. That dogs have much to teach us is his thesis, one explicitly expressed at the end of chapter three wherein he narrates of a terrible accident that sent him flying with his sled (though not the dog team) over a 20 foot frozen waterfall. Badly injured and alone in the wilderness, he would surely die, but his team came back to retrieve him. Once home again (thanks entirely to the dogs) and recuperating, he tell us . . .
" . . . I thought of the dogs. How they came back to help me, perhaps to save me. I knew that somewhere in the dogs, in their humor and the way they thought, they had great, old knowledge; they had something we had lost.
And the dogs could teach me."
If you've never ready Gary Paulsen, your life is missing something meaningful. I only just discovered him, and quickly ordered a half dozen more books. Since Paulsen has written about a hundred books, I have much to look forward to.
Read
March 16, 2018Pretty good book about sled dogs and trapping, as a lot of detail in the scenes so far I like the way the main character thinks. He thinks like someone real not some other book I've read before. It reminded me of a book I read in elementary school but I forgot the name.
I believe the theme is hardship because of how much the man and dogs go through.
I believe the theme is hardship because of how much the man and dogs go through.
February 1, 2009
Exhilarating NF about wilderness, endurance and…dogs. Bittersweet with some gross-out humor. Fascinating. Paulsen has won awards for his teen fiction. With Woodsong he tries his hand at NF. The book is filled with lovely (and sometimes terrifying) glimpses into his life living on the edge of wilderness in Minnesota running his dogs. It finishes with an accounting of his first Iditerod.
September 4, 2011
I HATE THIS BOOK. It was almost as bad as "Red Scarf Girl" (Jiang Ji Li). They assigned this book at school two years ago and it was the second-worst book I've ever read. There is no plot. Nothing happens. Nobody wants to read about a man who owns dogs.
November 18, 2008
people really do get thriugh hard times
March 13, 2011
I had to read it for school. Kind of strange. No story line. Just a bunch of Gary Paulen's stories. Last third is his story of the Iditarod.
September 24, 2018
I looooved this book.... My son recommended it to me. He's already made his grandma read it, too. It is so good. And I can't wait to read the author's other books.
January 19, 2019
Not a fan of this book.
May 22, 2017
Personal Response
I gave this book a five out of five. I really enjoyed reading this book. The book was very entertaining with all the stories he told and all the wildlife he talked about. All the stories were very interesting.
Plot
The plot is Gary Paulsen telling stories about sledding dogs and what lessons nature has taught him about life. When he first started with the sledding dogs he did not know much about them or nature. They taught him a lot of lessons of life and how things are different in the wild with animals than in civilization. He then explains his training for the Iditarod and talked about each day of the Iditarod. The Iditarod is a very hard grueling course that is 1,150 miles long. Every day was a grueling experience for him and was a fight to get through the day.
Characterization
Gary Paulsen loves the outdoors and the wilderness. He is a writer and does dog sledding. He is very compassionate to animals and the wild. At first he thought he knew a lot about nature and what happens in it. By the end of the book he realized he barely knew anything about it and how it works. He learned many lessons from his dogs and just by being in the outdoors a lot. He saw events happen that changed how he thought what happens in nature.
Setting
It takes place in Minnesota and Alaska. He lives in Minnesota and he ran the Iditarod trail in Alaska. The setting impacts it because if he lived in another place and it was warmer he wouldn’t be able to use his sledding dogs.
Theme
The theme of the book is to be at one with nature and show compassion to nature. Gary used to hunt and trap but he stopped because he couldn’t kill for fun anymore. He also learned that the predators have to win sometimes otherwise they would die instead of the prey.
Recommendation
I would recommend this book to boys in middle school or older who like the outdoors and nature. I think starting in middle school the kid would be old enough to handle the thought of blood and what really happens in nature. He goes in depth in his description of when he saw animals kill other animals. He describes how much blood was there and how horrible it looked like it was for the prey. That would not be good for younger kids.
I gave this book a five out of five. I really enjoyed reading this book. The book was very entertaining with all the stories he told and all the wildlife he talked about. All the stories were very interesting.
Plot
The plot is Gary Paulsen telling stories about sledding dogs and what lessons nature has taught him about life. When he first started with the sledding dogs he did not know much about them or nature. They taught him a lot of lessons of life and how things are different in the wild with animals than in civilization. He then explains his training for the Iditarod and talked about each day of the Iditarod. The Iditarod is a very hard grueling course that is 1,150 miles long. Every day was a grueling experience for him and was a fight to get through the day.
Characterization
Gary Paulsen loves the outdoors and the wilderness. He is a writer and does dog sledding. He is very compassionate to animals and the wild. At first he thought he knew a lot about nature and what happens in it. By the end of the book he realized he barely knew anything about it and how it works. He learned many lessons from his dogs and just by being in the outdoors a lot. He saw events happen that changed how he thought what happens in nature.
Setting
It takes place in Minnesota and Alaska. He lives in Minnesota and he ran the Iditarod trail in Alaska. The setting impacts it because if he lived in another place and it was warmer he wouldn’t be able to use his sledding dogs.
Theme
The theme of the book is to be at one with nature and show compassion to nature. Gary used to hunt and trap but he stopped because he couldn’t kill for fun anymore. He also learned that the predators have to win sometimes otherwise they would die instead of the prey.
Recommendation
I would recommend this book to boys in middle school or older who like the outdoors and nature. I think starting in middle school the kid would be old enough to handle the thought of blood and what really happens in nature. He goes in depth in his description of when he saw animals kill other animals. He describes how much blood was there and how horrible it looked like it was for the prey. That would not be good for younger kids.
Read
March 26, 2018I thought this book did a very good job on making the scenes in the book very detailed making me think I was right there with him. I think people should read it even if you don't like outdoors because I think at least the first four chapters will get to you. The whole book on how he had been hunting for year and stopped and realized that killing animals is a wrong thing to do and just to let them live there own life. He had a dog sled team and got to know all the dogs extremely well and knew who would always work hard and who would get tired and slow down. He loved everyone of his dogs like they were his kids. He entered in the Alaska dog sled race. I would love to tell you more but if you want to know what all happens throughout this book and during the race you need to read, "Woodsong," by Gary Paulsen.
January 29, 2018
I recall snagging a copy of Woodsong, shortly after being completely captivated with Paulsen's Winterdance, which chronicled his first time attending the Iditarod, the grueling 1,100 mile dog-sled race, through Alaska. It is a great, heart-pounding memoir.
This slim book, was written a few years before. In the first half, he gives short, personal essays, on living in the wilds of northern Minnesota. Running trap-lines, showdowns with bear and moose and his bountiful love and admiration of his trusty dogs. The second half, deals with some of the highlights of the race, which he completely expands in his next book.
If you love the outdoors and outdoor writing, give this a try.
This slim book, was written a few years before. In the first half, he gives short, personal essays, on living in the wilds of northern Minnesota. Running trap-lines, showdowns with bear and moose and his bountiful love and admiration of his trusty dogs. The second half, deals with some of the highlights of the race, which he completely expands in his next book.
If you love the outdoors and outdoor writing, give this a try.
Read
May 28, 2019I liked this book. I have read a lot of Gary Paulsen's books. I like them because they are about the outdoors. I loved this book because it was in Alaska. I have always wanted to Alaska and run a dog team like this guy. I liked the part about the deer where it got killed. It reminds me of the time I killed my first deer. I have killed a lot of deer since I was 9. I like hunting unlike this guy. He doesnt like it because he likes animals. This wasn't my favorite Paulson book but it was a good book.
April 27, 2018
I really enjoyed this book as I do just about every book by Gary Paulsen. This book tells you the story of how Gary got into racing dogs. He talks about running trap lines in northern Minnesota. Gary has a major accident while racing dogs and he shares it in the book. This book keeps you on your toes. You're always wondering what will happen or if the author will be ok. Gary lets inexperienced dogs lead without paying much attention and they go off of a small cliff. A large stick impaled him in the leg and he is bleeding fast. It gives the reader a good question, what would you do if you were in this situation? I think it is fun to think through what I would do if this had happen to me. This book is a very good choice for anyone who liked Hatchet or Brian's Winter.
December 12, 2018
Outdoorsy, brave, and determined are all words I would use to describe the main character, Gary Paulsen in Woodsong. Paulsen lives in Minnesota and in the bitter cold uses sled dogs as transportation. He delivers necessities and gets paid by his customers. He lives in the woods with his wife and son and faces many challenges that can cause injury or fatality. He learns numerous lessons from his dogs, other animals in nature, and the dog race that lasted 17-days.
This book is amazing because there are multiple surreal situations including hallucinations that are fascinating to read. One example is the time he saw an imaginary eskimo helping him. There are frequent emotional scenes between Gary and his dogs. For example, when one of his dogs died, Gary Paulsen had the dog in a cage. Dogs like to look east when they die, but he was wrapped around the cage so he couldn’t look east towards the sun at the time. I was feeling bad for Paulsen, until the stick in the dog’s mouth had been a way of communicating that everything was all right. I would give this book a five out of five in quality and entertainment.
This book is amazing because there are multiple surreal situations including hallucinations that are fascinating to read. One example is the time he saw an imaginary eskimo helping him. There are frequent emotional scenes between Gary and his dogs. For example, when one of his dogs died, Gary Paulsen had the dog in a cage. Dogs like to look east when they die, but he was wrapped around the cage so he couldn’t look east towards the sun at the time. I was feeling bad for Paulsen, until the stick in the dog’s mouth had been a way of communicating that everything was all right. I would give this book a five out of five in quality and entertainment.
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