Nonfiction Monday - another Gary Paulsen autobiography

Gary Paulsen. This Side of Wild: Mutts, Mares, and Laughing Dinosaurs.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015.

Another snidbit of Gary Paulsen's life, this time ranging from himself at age 18 to an elderly 67-year old preparing to run the Iditarod race in Alaska. For the third time.
At age 18 he was part of the army's nuclear-warhead school and he had just learned that atom bombs wipe out huge populations so fast that people don't know what hit them - just POOF, and they were evaporated. And the dog who conversed with him.  Yes, he talked to a dog and it not only answered, but offered to share her stick and ball with him to make him feel better.  She couldn't change his job in nuclear-warhead school, but she could make him feel better inside.

The tale of the third Iditarod actually opens and closes this book. Firstly it is not about the Iditarod itself. (Eventually he decided that although the mind was willing, the body just wasn't cooperating.)  This first story is about the tiny house dog ( a toy poodle) who made it his charge to protect Paulson - from bears and other dangers.
And the last story is about how very, very, very smart ravens are - and how they train people and their dogs to serve their (the raven's) needs.  Mostly about food. His sled dog's food which became the Raven's food.  (with a side comment about how ants are the most successful species on the planet.)

In short - this book is all about dogs who interacted with Paulson's life. (except for the ravens who interacted with his sled dogs in training)

Written in the style of one of his other autobiographies, How Angel Peterson Got His Name (a book every mother of a young boy needs to read to learn some of the various disasters boys get into - on purpose), each chapter begins with an intriguing title and ends with a zinger. (see above about the ants.)

Nonfiction Monday - Gary Paulson

Today I want to bring your attention to some of Gary Paulson's autobiographies.

Guts: The True Stories behind Hatchet and the Brian Books. New York: Delacorte Press, 2001.
For people who love, love, love Hatchet and its sequels and want more. Using examples of events in his own life, Paulsen traces how he put realistic emotion into his award winning books.

Winterdance, the Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod.  New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1994.
Not everyone knows that Paulson has run the Iditarod many times. (the dogsled race in Alaska that originally was from Seward to Nome.  But with the changes in weather conditions the actual race path varies.) This slice of his life relates the training and strengthening of the dogs - and of the driver himself. The first half of the book gradually became historically funny as he discovers the dogs need heavier and heavier things to pull and he ends up having them pull an old car - which falls apart around him as they race/ crash through the forrest. The second half of this tale suddenly switches to the intensely serious survival adventure of running it.  Not many of those who begin this race actually reach the finish and you discover why.

How Angel Peterson Got his Name: and Other Outrageous Tales About Extreme Sports.  New York: Wendy Lamb Books, 2003.
I give this book to every female parent who is just discovering that raising boys is very different from raising girls.  Example - boys and electric fences.  It seems that every boy has to experiment with them. By peeing on them. (I get the feeling that boys feel the urge to test themselves by peeing on everything, but what would I know - I'm female.)  As the boy(s) hobble into the house, the father simply nods.  "It's genetic," he says.  How did Angel Peterson get this nickname?  Well, it involves a sledding experiment - which nearly kills him.  And so on. And so on. Until you wonder how male children manage to survive childhood and teen hood. (betcha can't help laughing, though.)

Here's the official Iditarod website.

I can't find a Gary Paulson website. Maybe he's too busy raising and training sled dogs. But you can find out lots about him at the official Gary Paulson Random House books site.

The Nonfiction Monday roundup seems to be here.