Gary Paulsen
(1939– )
Gary Paulsen was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a few months before World War II began to sweep across Europe. It is no surprise, therefore, that the future writer's early life was shaped by the war. His father, Oscar, an army officer, was eventually sent to Europe, where he served under General George Patton. Paulsen's mother, Eunice, moved with her son to Chicago, where she worked in a munitions factory.
After the war, Oscar Paulsen was stationed in the Philippines. In 1946, Gary and his mother crossed the Pacific Ocean on a troop ship to join him in Manila. A terrifying incident occurred during the voyage; Gary and his mother witnessed a plane crash into the sea—and watched in horror as the passengers were torn apart by sharks.
Life in the Philippines was not very happy, either. Paulsen describes his parents' alcoholism and his difficult childhood there in the autobiographical Eastern Sun, Winter Moon.
After returning to the United States in 1949, the Paulsens never stayed in the same place for long. He never spent more than five months in the same school, and he was very unhappy in school because he was shy and awkward. One freezing winter's day, however, with nothing to do, Paulsen walked into a library to warm up. He walked out with a library card and a book—and the beginning of a lifelong love of reading.
Paulsen's restless lifestyle continued when he became an adult. Among the jobs he held were teacher, soldier, farmer, trapper, professional archer, and singer. A constant factor in Paulsen's life has been his love of reading. Then, in 1966, he began to write. He has completed well over one hundred books, and he continues to write. He has written for children and for adults; he has written fiction, nonfiction, and even drama. Many of Paulsen's books, especially his nonfiction, reflect his varied jobs and interests. He has written about rodeos, football, hiking, basketball, canoeing and kayaking, skiing, hockey, ballooning, tennis, sailing, building a home and home repairs, and farming.
Paulsen also loves dog-sled racing. He took part in the Iditarod, the 1,200-mile dog-sled race across Alaska, in 1983 and again in 1985. In Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod, he describes training for and running one of the races: how he was dragged part of the way by his dogs; how he nearly froze, nearly drowned, and nearly plunged over a cliff to his death; how he encountered blizzards, enraged moose, and crazed racers. Only a doctor's diagnosis that he had serious heart disease stopped him from a third attempt.
Though he no longer can journey by dog sled, Paulsen remains an adventurer. His recent Pilgrimage on a Steel Ride describes his trip from his home in New Mexico to Alaska on a motorcycle. Paulsen's love for adventure also is reflected in many of his novels. Dogsong, for example, describes a boy's journey across Alaska by dog sled. Hatchet, too, is an adventure story, a tale that pits a boy who knows nothing about life in the wilderness against the forces of nature.
