Gary Paulsen is one of the authors who made me a reader. I hated reading when I was a kid, but I loved the woods. I liked survival stories and learning about nature. Hatchet was one of the few books that I actually enjoyed. After reading Hatchet a few dozen times, I moved on to the rest of Gary Paulsen’s Brian books.

In Guts, Paulsen talks about the real-life events that inspired him to write the Brian series. He has lived an unusual life, mostly in remote places. He writes about his time as a paramedic in rural Colorado (very close to where I currently live). He also tells stories about surviving in the wilderness in Minnesota and Alaska. Gary Paulsen has actually lived through everything that happens in the Brian books. This memoir covers his experiences with heart failure, plane crashes, animal attacks, and hunting mishaps.

Paulsen’s writing style is conversational. I read this book straight through without putting it down because it felt like I was listening to a friend tell stories. I laughed out loud several times. The author has a way of understating deadly problems that makes me laugh. Then I feel terrible about laughing at his near-death experiences. They’re funny, though!

My favorite story is the one where Paulsen and his 14 sled dogs got trapped in a blizzard and needed to be rescued by plane. The dogs were loose inside the plane and lost their minds when it took off and started bouncing around in the storm. During a 20-minute flight, the dogs destroyed the plane’s interior. They bit the pilot and almost caused the plane to crash. Not cool, dogs. The moral of the story: dogs on planes know no chill.

My second-favorite story is the one where Gary wanted to know if it was possible to eat turtle eggs. He tried eating one and threw up. His dog caught the puke and swallowed it before it hit the ground. Again, not cool, dogs.

“We have grown away from knowledge, away from knowing what something is really like, toward knowing only what somebody else says it is like. There seems to be a desire to ignore the truth in favor of drama.” – Guts

If you’re not interested in hunting or wilderness survival, then this book might not be for you, but for me, it was perfect. It’s a quick, funny read that distracted me from the rest of the world. You’d probably get the most out of Guts if you’ve read the Brian books, but it’s not completely necessary. The stories are entertaining on their own.

Great memoir of Paulsen - writer of Hatchet and other adventure books.

An interesting book about the experiences Paulsen garnered to write about Brian's experiences and hardships in the book The Hatchet. It was a quick and unique read.

The "Steinbeck of middle school" as a colleague calls him, does it again with a memoir of the insane adventures he drew upon in writing his adventure fiction. I couldn't stop laughing when I read the part about him tossing his entire dog team one by one towards the front of the small plane they were misbalancing--each dog would crash into the pilot, then immediately run back to Gary. My students were somewhat apalled at how funny I found this image.

A nice easy read about the stories behind the making of the Hatchet book. Will recommend it to my students after we read Hatchet.

Read the full review here: http://newberyandbeyond.com/mini-newbery-reviews/

In this new book, Paulsen tells the story of his own wilderness adventures, from his childhood to his adulthood. It is fascinating enough to keep an adult’s interest, but written simply enough to intrigue children–especially those who love the thought of having to survive on their own in the wild. I may be biased by my childhood love for Gary Paulsen, but this book is definitely worth a look, no matter what your age.