Super quick read. Loved learning about the true stories surrounding Hatchet, one of my favorite books of all time. Writing is a a bit rambly, but not too bad

It was a great book for the most part but not perfect.
The book was about Gary Paulsen, the author of the book, and the author of other books such as Hatchet. He is a very courageous, self-sufficient, and outdoorsy person, he takes inspiration from things that happened in his life to write many books about survival. The setting of the book is all through Garys' life, it takes place mostly outdoors by himself, where he has to survive the situation he is in or help someone else. At the beginning of the book, he talks about how he worked as a first responder where he saw all kinds of horrible things, he tells stories about some of the sad things that happened. He also talks about some hunting experiences later in the book. The book is told in first person where Gary is recalling what happened throughout his life and how some of his experiences inspired some of his books. He is narrating this now that he is older and can't do as many things as he used to. This book is good because it teaches you about many new things that you might find cool. This book is great for people who like being outdoors a lot.

This book in one word was fascinating. Understanding the backstory behind the hatchet was great. It added more depth to The Hatchet. His adventures through the woods and the winter inspired the realization that Gary Paulsen's fate was to survive. To survive to write the series that impacted children and adults all over the world. His main message to us was that your survival depends on your luck, chance, and most importantly your guts. I strongly recommend people who have read the hatchet series and people who are searching for adventure to read this book. "I remembered him and his eyes and I put him in the plane next to Brian because he was, above all things, real, and I wanted the book to be real."

I liked this book a lot more than I thought I would. It was fascinating to read about his life and how he came up with the things that happened in Hatchet. He has lived a colorful, adventurous life and he goes into detail about his hunting techniques. I recommended it to my husband and son-in-law. It is a book a man will enjoy. I'm glad he survived all his brushes with death.

I picked this book because I had read Hatchet. I wanted to know where these experiences were from.

The title of the book relates to the book in whats included in the book. The book talks about how to cook guts of animals, so it was a very good choice to call it that.

The author wrote this book because he wanted to explain where Brain's experiences came from.

The audience who would read this book would probably be anyone who read Hatchet.

Facts: 1. Gary ate turtle eggs for research. I found it interesting because I would never do anything like that.
2. Gary was part of a group of volunteers that answered emergency ambulance calls. That was interesting because I never knew something like that ever existed.
3. Gary ran dog sled races. That was interesting because I remember seeing a movie about that. Iron Will for all those curious.

The theme of this book is survival in dire conditions.

My 3 reading strategies: 1. Using prior knowledge, I know how dog sled races work.
2. Visualizing, I could visualize him eating the turtle eggs.
3. Inferring, I could infer him getting into sticky situations during the race.

I would recommend this book to anyone who would like to find out exactly how Hatchet became to be.

Interesting but not well organized. Also very short.

‘Guts’ by Gary Paulsen was a considerable novel. I really liked the overall story line as well as the action packed, real life situations Gary Paulsen experienced. The book was based of a similar, well know, novel ‘Hatchet’, which Gary Paulsen wrote 15 years before publishing ‘Guts’. During the book, Paulsen describes his near-death experiences in the wilderness chapter-to-chapter making the reader feel as if they where standing right their, with him. Each chapter is based of real life events which where published in his bestseller ‘Hatchet’, but from the perspective of the main character Brain Robeson, a 13 year-old boy. One reason I really liked this book, was because of the action. Normally when you see a biography it doesn’t seem very interesting, but Gary Paulsen did an outstanding job.

The book starts with a chapter called, “Heart Attacks, Plane Crashes, and Flying”. It starts by describing Gary Paulsen’s life before he was fortunate enough to become a successful writer. He lived with his wife in a small prairie town in the middle of farm country, and with so much down time, Paulsen volunteered as a medic with only a small ambulance, which was donated by the city. Gary Paulsen, being the only service available for thousands of square miles, had to witness many deaths mostly form heart attacks. And sadly, Paulsen was the only hope except for the city helicopter, which sometimes took hours to arrive.

This book was a great read, and I recommend it for someone who’s looking for an easy quick-read. If theirs one thing I learned from Gary Paulsen’s life, it was that well….it took guts.

This book is an awesome autobiography on how Gary Paulsen came about his ideas for writing his books.I really enjoyed reading about his adventures. He tells some of his real life stories and how they are put into his books. The stories have so much detail I almost feel as if I am in his shoes. All the stories he tells in this book are completely real.

Brian, the main character, in almost all of his books goes through all the same stuff Gary Paulsen has in his life. Brian is a survivalist and lives for adventure.

Paulsen tells a story about how he walked in the woods in the winter when he encountered a moose. The moose attacked Gary Paulsen multiple times. Paulsen then pretended to be dead so the moose would leave. Paulsen also tells how he put in one of his books a plane crash. Then later that week in real life he almost crashed a plane himself.

This book is told through the third person. Brian is the name Gary Paulsen gives the main character in all his books. He loves the outdoors and going on adventures.

The stories he tells take place out in the middle of nowhere. They are in dense woods and forests areas.This is great for the main character, Brian, because he is a survivalist.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes Gary Paulsen books from fifth grade up. Both girls and boys would like it. I also think this is a great book for a person who does not like to read. Personally, I am not a big reader but this book made me want to keep reading. All in all, this was an awesome book and a definite must read.

Summary: This is a biography by Gary Paulsen where he shares information about his life experiences, comedic anecdotes that relates to the stories he has written, and events that provided inspiration for many of his stories. The author perhaps most famous for the story Hatchet gives the reader insight into his life experiences and how they have resulted in the works that he has provided us with.

Genre: Junior Biographical

Critique:

(a)tThe book is provides accuracy in that he relays to the reader how his own personal experiences provided the basis for the characters in his books. The horrible things that Brian experiences in Hatchet were things that Paulsen himself experienced. All of these accounts provide an inside look into how the writings of Paulsen developed over time.

(b)tThe strongest elements of the book were the ability of Paulsen to relate his personal experiences to that of his characters as well as his ability to provide humor that also related to the stories and provided entertainment for the reader. The only negative aspect of this book is perhaps its graphic details, which could be off putting to many younger readers.

(c)tComedy is apparent in the book in a chapter that is titled “Eating Eyeballs and Guts or Starving: The Fine Art of Wilderness Nutrition.” You never know what you might have to eat to prevent starvation, and the author lets you know in very explicit detail.

Curriculum Connection:

This book would be a great tool for a literary unit about biographies or even as an introduction to literary units that include his books.

The book is about Gary Paulsen in his younger years, He talks about all of the hunting he did when he was younger. Since he parents were poor they couldn't afford much food so Gary went out by himself armed with a bow to come back with dinner. He had to provide for himself completely with working multiple jobs to afford school clothes. Then as he got older and got out of hunting he went to also to race dogs and sleigh. Hes won multiple races but the main thing he remembered from also is all the mosses. He said hes been attacked by multiple mosses. He then got into writhing books about his experiences which is where this book came from.

Guts shares the stories of Paulsen’s past that stuck with him and became part of Brian’s stories. He begins the book by explaining that he constantly receives letters asking him about all the true stories that happened to him that made it into Brian’s books, so he decided to write them all down. Each chapter has a theme like moose attacks and begins with a quote from one of the Brian books that relate. It was a fascinating read to see all that Paulsen has been through and how he used his experiences in the stories he’s written.

-nonfiction, author requirement-

This last year you could say that I 'discovered' Gary Paulsen. My daughter brought 'Hatchet' home from school and we read it together and from there I branched out on my own, reading at least another dozen and half of his books. So keep in mind that I'm a bit of a fan-- though I hate that word.

In any case, I just picked up "Guts" and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's not an autobiography in the sense that it tells the story of Gary's life, but it certainly gives you insight into the types of things he's done and seen. Everything from running the Iditarod to serving in the Army, setting bowling pins to hunting with gun and bow, from volunteering with a fire department to living alone in the woods as a kid.

He tells us of those experiences to a real measure to verify that the Brian's experiences (in the Brian books) weren't totally fiction. That they were based on events in Gary's life. Now for me, I enjoyed these tales not so much because of the tie-in with the books, but because it taught me a great deal about life was in the last century, where a boy sometimes had to hunt to feed himself; work to afford his own clothes, and make his own bow and arrows.

Pam T~
mom/blogger