Gone to the Woods: Surviving a Lost Childhood [Gary Paulsen]

Ages 10 and up

A middle-grade memoir from a living literary legend, giving readers a new perspective on the origin of Paulsen's famed survival stories.

His name is synonymous with high-stakes wilderness survival stories. Now, Gary Paulsen portrays a series of life-altering moments in his turbulent childhood as his own original survival story. If not for his summer escape from a shockingly neglectful Chicago upbringing to a North Woods homestead at age five, there never would have been a Hatchet. Without the encouragement of the librarian who handed him his first book at age thirteen, he may never have become a reader. Without his desperate teenage enlistment in the Army, he would not have discovered his true calling as a storyteller. A moving and enthralling story of grit and growing up for newcomers and lifelong fans alike, this is the acclaimed author at his rawest and realest.

About the Author

Gary Paulsen is the winner of the ALA Margaret Edwards Award for his contribution to young adult literature, and is a three-time Newbery Honor winner, for Hatchet, Dogsong, and The Winter Room. He lives in New Mexico.