Gary Paulsen 1939-2021
When did I first pick
up a book to read by Gary Paulsen? Did I ever read Hatchet before
needing to teach it to my fifth graders, somewhere around 2010? How many of his
books HAVE I read, have I taught? I can’t stop thinking about Gary Paulsen this
morning. My memory is so poor for dates and event timelines, especially when
things happen that I don’t realize are going to be significant someday. I wish
there was a way that something could spark in your brain at the time that says,
“This. Pay attention to THIS. It will be meaningful for you someday.” I guess
that’s just not the way life works though. Thankfully, what’s most important
right now is the feeling of permanency, the lasting impact, that Gary Paulsen’s
books have had on me since the early 2000’s at least. I think maybe I came to know of him when my
eldest child was in fifth grade and reading Hatchet. I probably read it
when he brought it home from school. It’s an amazing book. Not for the story
itself. It’s a good story, but not the best I’ve ever read. So many
implausible, impossible things passed off as true to life, even though the
story is fiction. But what makes the story amazing is that it has, for many
generations of kids since its publication in 1986, drawn even the most
reluctant reader in, and created a READER
out of a non-reader. Closer to my own heart is the fact that I have had a
relationship with Gary Paulsen as not only a teacher, but also as an insatiable
reader. His writing talent was not just in
children’s literature, but he was a magnificent and amazingly funny adult
writer as well. He was also a dog musher!
Briefly, and not in it for the long haul - though I think his heart was
- but his timing as a musher just so happened to correspond with the beginning
of that passion in my own life. I think that is why I am SO sad over his death
today. It affects me on so many different levels, all of which are things I
hold close to my heart.
In 2004 or 5, I
taught the books Stone Fox and Balto for the first time to my 4th
graders. In doing research for these books, I discovered the Iditarod, which
turned into a lifelong passion for all things dog, and Alaska, for me. Prior to
that time, I don’t believe I had ever heard of it, and the timing of everything
that year was nothing if not serendipitous. I’m sure it is probably when I
discovered Gary’s adult book Winterdance, subtitled The Fine Madness
of Running the Iditarod. It remains,
to this day, one of my all-time favorite books. It is also a book I will never
forget reading for the first time. I remember reading it in bed before sleep,
in the dark with a book light, and laughing out loud at various parts,
literally guffawing and trying so hard not to wake my sleeping husband. The
stand-out pieces of humor I specifically recall (despite my poor recall of most
things I read) is his description of trying to train his dogs on a bicycle, his
encounter with skunks (and his wife’s response of making him sleep in the
kennel with the dogs, upon his return), and his sleep-deprived experience with
glowing green phosphorescent tree trunks on a wooded trail during an overnight
training run. I don’t think that was the first Gary Paulsen book I ever read, but
it was certainly the best, and my first realization of what a gifted writer he
was, especially with his crafted use of side-splitting humor, at his own expense. I also recall trying to share those humorous
parts with said sleeping husband, once awake, and not being able to read them
without laughing myself to tears. Somehow, we did not share the same sense of
humor that night in the dark. I still just love that book.
I was actually
lucky enough to attend both the summer Iditarod Education Conference in
Anchorage in June of 2005, and the winter conference in February/March, 2006, just
before the actual Iditarod. Gary was a speaker at one of those conferences, and
posed for pictures afterwards. I bought another copy of Winterdance and had it
inscribed for my outdoor-loving brother, who had come to Alaska with me the
first time I went. I no longer have a copy of that photo, lost to computer that
died with no back up available, but the image of the moment itself is burned
into my memory bank. I recall Gary,
seated at the table outside the conference room at the Millenium Hotel in
Anchorage, signing copies, and I stood behind him, and someone snapped a
picture of that moment. That’s a gift of a memory to keep. I don’t have a lot
of heroes, I don’t really have time for much in the way of hero-worship, but I
will say Gary Paulsen became one for me. And to have had a photo taken with
him, even if I no longer have it to look at, well, that is not something I will
forget, even when I forget so much else minutia, daily. He had run the Iditarod twice, previously,
once in 1983, finishing in 41st place, and again in 1985, scratching
(quitting) only 80 miles from the finish. He was running again in 2006, and I
was there. I. WAS. THERE. 4th Avenue and D, Anchorage, Alaska, a
million miles (it seemed) from my classroom and my home in western NY, watching
a writing genius, musher hero, one whom I had now met IN PERSON, RUN THE
IDITAROD. Even the capital letters cannot begin to convey the level of
excitement I felt. I have no words to describe how I felt when I heard Gary
Paulsen’s name called as number 15, nor how I felt as he and his dogs flew past
me on that snow covered street. The
whole event was a top life-time event for me, in large part because of Gary
Paulsen.
Hatchet followed,
a few years later. I moved up from teaching 4th grade, to teaching 5th
and 6th. Hatchet was, I was happy to be reminded, a staple for
5th grade reading. Realizing
that this little gem was now mine to introduce as a reading experience to ten-
year- olds was another delightful adventure. I don’t remember the first class I
taught it to, but I do remember they loved it. As did every subsequent class.
Some years, we immediately went on to read the follow-up book, Brian’s
Winter. And every year, there was
always at least one kid, often more, almost always boys but some girls too, who
claimed they did not like reading, but who then decided Gary Paulsen was an ok
writer, and could I please tell them some other books he wrote that they could
read? I even had a few kids over the years read all of the “Brian Robeson”
books; I think there are five. Once in awhile, I recommended Paulsen’s Guts,
or Woodsong, for those very outdoorsy kinds of boys who hated reading
but still had to fulfill their monthly independent reading points. They still didn’t
love reading, but they got through the books and didn’t hate them. That’s a
win, for a teacher, for me. As I was nearing the end of my teaching career, I
began to pay more attention to the classic, special books I had been teaching
for so many years. It was usually spring when I stood in front of the class and
read, “Brian Robeson stared out the window of the small plane at the endless
green northern wilderness below” but my final year, I couldn’t wait ‘til
spring. The warm fall sunshine of September fell through the large windows of
my second floor classroom that year, three years ago now, as I continued, “It
was a small plane, a bush plane – a Cessna 406 – and the engine was so loud, so
roaring and consuming and loud, that it ruined any chance for conversation.”
Gary Paulsen. A
truly gifted, amazing human being. He had a terrible childhood, one that would
wreck most people. Instead, he turned it into a lifetime of experiences for his
own writing that reached so many others. He was a world traveler, a musher, a
boat builder and sailor, a husband, father, friend. He wrote, with grit, with
an identifiable turn of phrase that could ONLY be Gary Paulsen, with humor,
with sparse yet stunning description. His writing brough me joy as a reader,
and as a teacher. His connection to dogs and mushing for a time set my soul on
fire. I will miss you in this world. I
am sad that you are gone from it. We are all the less for your absence,
however, we are all the more for having known your presence. I hope this next life brings you greater
adventures, new stories, fresh sharpened pencils with which to write new tales.
Continue the dance you began, my friend. You will forever be missed.
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