Hatchet:By Gary Paulsen

Personal Life:

Gary Paulsen in young writer of adolescents around the world. He was born on 17th May 1939 in Minneapolis; Minnesota. He developed interest for reading at a young age. When he got the first book issued from the library, he went down to the basement and read it in solitude. That incident vetted his appetite for reading and he then read several books in the basement of his house

Paulsen didn’t have a very nice family life. At the age of seven, he lived with various people in his family, first with his grandmother and then his mother, who took him to Manila, Philippines, where his father lived.But every day bickering and severe conflicts between his parents made Paulsen distressed and he ran away at the age of 14.He did odd jobs to survive. He worked at sugar beet farm, quitted and spent the rest of the summer as a “carnie” in the carnival, where he acquired taste for adventure. He spent a youthful summer doing odd jobs -as a farmhand; jobs as an engineer, construction worker, ranch hand, driver, and sailor. His experiences provided him material from which he created his amazing and inspiring stories.

 

Educational Qualification:

Gary Paulsen came back home and finished high school at Bemidji College, 1957-58, ;

graduating in with a D- average. He then attended an University of Colorado, 1976 however,

couldn’t study for more than five months at a single school. 

 

Career :

He then joined the army and worked for 3 years. He  took up jobs at different farm houses, followed by miscellaneous jobs like, working in a Construction Company, ranch, truck driver and sailor. He also  competed in Iditarods twice.

Paulsen’s suddenly realized that he would become a writer when he was working as a satellite technician for an aerospace firm in California. He spent a year in Hollywood as a magazine proof-reader, working on his own writing every night. Then he left California and drove to northern Minnesota where he rented a cabin on a lake; by the end of the winter, he had completed his first novel

Living in the remote Minnesota woods, Paulsen eventually turned to the sport of dogsled racing, and entered the 1983 Iditarod. In 1985, after running the Iditarod for the second time, he suffered an attack of angina and was forced to give up his dogs and from then onwards he gave all his energies to writing

It is Paulsen’s overwhelming belief in young people that drives him to write. His intense desire to tap deeply into the human spirit and to encourage readers to observe and care about the world around them has brought him both enormous popularity with young people and critical acclaim from the children’s book community. Paulsen is a master storyteller who has written more than 175 books and some 200 articles and short stories for children and adults. He is one of the most important writers of young adult literature today, and three of his novels—Hatchet, Dogsong, and The Winter Room—are Newbery Honor Books. His books frequently appear on the best books lists of the American Library Association.

 

Other books by Author

 

By: Gary Paulsen

A young boy and his mother spend Christmas 1943 with relatives in northern Minnesota while his father is fighting in the war in Europe.  They take a long journey by train to a snowy land of vast frozen lakes,...

 

By: Gary Paulsen

A remarkable novel about one of the most important and loving relationships in Gary Paulsen's life.
The wonderful grandmother seen through the eyes of a young boy in The Cookcamp reaches out to him at 14, offering...

 

By: Gary Paulsen

When Amos and his best friend Dunc have a close encounter with an extraterrestrial named “Girrk,” Dunc thinks they should report their findings to NASA. But Amos has other plans. Not only does he promise...