Oh heavens. I haven't laughed this hard in months. I laughed so hard in fact, that my kids kept looking at me in wonder (who is this crazy woman?). Though the book is inscribed to all thirteen year olds, I think I'd rather mine didn't get hold of it. Too many crazy ideas.

I don't think my dad was this crazy, but he grew up in this generation and has many good stories to tell my kids about the fun he had. Makes me wonder if we will ever see these kind of days again??

How Angel Peterson Got His Name by Gary Paulsen is a collection of stories from Gary's teenage years. The stories are humorous and daring events that he and his friends faced as young 13 year old teens. They do wild and crazy things for fun such as trying to break the world record on skis, fighting a bear at a fair, or even going on a first date.

This book would be excellent for upper fifth grade readers especially for boys. The humor and daringness throughout the story will have boys wanting to read more. Having this book in a library or a classroom would be something I feel boys would be highly interested in. There are no illustrations within the text, but the cover illustrates the wildness one will explore while reading the book.

Overall, the book is fun and a very adventurous read.

How Angle Peterson Got His Name
Biography
111 pages

tThis dare devil book is an adventurous story told by Gary Paulsen himself. It is all about Paulsen’s childhood experiences. The story is named this because the main part is when Paulsen’s childhood friend, Carl, Decides he wants to “break the speed record on skis.” Carl thinks, “It cant miss- what can go wrong?” But boy, could he of been farther from the truth. First, waxing his skis wasn’t the brightest idea or even trying the stunt in the first place. When an epic failure happens trying the stunt, lets just say a very snowy Carl comes out of the mess. The hilarious and dramatic stories of Gary Paulsen’s childhood friends, skiing, flying, crashing, bashing, girls, and other failures is full of excitement and curiosity. I gave this book 4 stars because the hilarious “outrageous tales” stay strong throughout the entire book.

This is the crazy adventures of a bunch of boys. Very funny and entertaining, but crazy stories of what these kids did to keep themselves busy. As a parent of a boy more than a bit scary. Luckily they all lived to tell the tales.

REQUIRED AUTHOR GARY PAULSEN & NONFICTIONAL CATEGORY

I only chose this book because my younger brother is obsessed with it; and I can see why. It is such a typical boy book filled with ludicrous adventures that promote nothing but tomfoolery and mischievous teenage fun. However, the book is written in a very creative and well structured way that make it a hilarious and easy read. Though it is not like most non-fiction books I have read, Gary illustrates true adventures that occurred, which makes the book even funnier, because the fight with the bear ACTUALLY happened. I really liked the book and I thought it was a cute way for Gary to expand his works while also remaining true to what he knows and loves. Gary and his friends gave their parents a run for their money as they experience several life or death adventures sometimes on accident and other times just to impress girls. From bears to bungee jumping, the boys in this book experience the typical teenage boy adventures on their journey to developing their frontal lobes. Overall it was a cute quick read and accurately depicts the life of young boys.

Fun read, short tales of young boys growing up.

i read the book How Angel Peterson Got His Name and it was a good book and there were a lot of good parts in it. I really like the characters in the book and how they were all daredevils and how they wanted to be known for something. It was another good part about how the author mentioned that about this was basically an autobiography about what he did back in his life, and I kinda liked that. I didn't really like how the book ended, the ending was okay, but the author could've made a better ending. Overall, the book was alright and I really enjoyed it and I liked learning about all the silly stuff this author did with his friends when he was younger.

I recently read the book How Angel Peterson Got His Name by: Gary Paulsen. I loved this book because it's so hilarious. It was hilarious because in one part of the book one of Gary Paulsen's friends rides a parachute into a pig pen and gets caked with mud. Throughout most of the book Gary Paulsen and his friends are doing daring things like riding a parachute through the air and doing stunts on their bikes with ramps. I think Gary Paulsen did a great job writing this book because he described things very well like how the roads in winter were snowed over in winter. My favorite part was when one of Gary Paulsen's friends rode a parachute into a chicken coop and got covered in chicken poop and also managed to break his ankle. The genre of this book is autobiography. I would give this book 5 stars and would recommend this book to everyone.

This is a very fun book that every farm kid needs to read. When you do not have technology to entertain then you must make your own fun and let the imagination run wild. When you are thirteen and bored the funniest things happen. Be prepared to read this with others as you will catch yourself wanting to read parts of it out-loud so you can laugh together. Reminded me of hearing my dad tell stories of how he and his friends are 'lucky to be alive.' This is a book that will reach middle schools kids to adults as you laugh together and have wonderful conversations. A quick and easy read.

17 December 2002 HOW ANGEL PETERSON GOT HIS NAME AND OTHER OUTRAGEOUS TALES ABOUT EXTREME SPORTSby Gary Paulsen, Random House/Wendy Lamb Books, January 2003

I sent the following email warning early this morning to the book's editor:

Hi Wendy,

I've just read the forward and the first chapter of Angel Peterson. I'm writing to warn you that I'm leaving a note on my desk, so that if I die laughing they'll know who to blame.

Bill Mollineaux announced that Gary will be at next year's ALAN workshop. If I survive the rest of the book, that should be a blast.

Richie

This is no exaggeration! I was laughing so hard that I woke up Shari AND both dogs!

A longtime friend of mine, who works as our school's counselor--and who gets to borrow the books that I write about--has occasionally asked me very sweetly whether I could find more funny books for our students. J.T., this one's for you!

"We built countless ramps with old boards laid on barrels or boxes, at the bottom of a hill if possible, and we would try to jump over things with our bikes.

"Remember, these were one-speed fat-tired bikes with a crowned-up, castrating brace bar and the things we tried to jump were fences, wooden walls, barrels, bikes, each other. On one memorable occasion Alan--after carefully calculating distances and angles--tried to jump his stepfather's Ford coupe end to end. He didn't...quite...make it and left a face print on the windshield of the car, but that might have been because he was distracted by the scream when his mother came out just as we finished the ramp and Alan made his jump..."

Now, I can remember some of the "really neat stuff" we did when I was young: There was a telephone cable hanging from a wooden utility pole in this vacant lot filled with mounds of dirt left over from digging foundations in he neighborhood. It made for great swinging (à la George of the Jungle) until Jimmy Dean got a concussion by swinging straight into the pole. There was "skitching" --kids in Beatle boots grabbing onto the back bumper of any car that was cruising through the snow-slickened parking lot behind Modell's. I can also recall the thrill of aiming our banana bikes full speed over the edge and down the big drop-off at Sunshine Acres Park. But my sitting here today (in one piece) attests to the fact that I did NOT spend my impressionable years hanging out with Gary Paulsen and his buddies:

"Alan, again after carefully calculating and measuring..., decided that if you got up to twenty-six miles an hour and angled a ramp to ensure (that's how he put it, 'to ensure') that you got at least seven point six feet in the air, it was possible to do a complete backward somersault and land on your wheels upright. Alan, having gotten at least seven feet in the air after a screaming run down Black Hill, landed exactly, perfectly upside down, bicycle wheels straight up, spinning, in a cloud of dust and gravel."

Decorating the cover of HOW ANGEL PETERSON GOT HIS NAME AND OTHER OUTRAGEOUS TALES ABOUT EXTREME SPORTS is an illustration of a young man on snow skis. He is wearing one of those old leather flight helmets (à la Snoopy) and flight goggles, and he is being pulled through the snow behind a sporty automobile that dates back to my father's adolescence. The young man is Angel Peterson who in 1954, inspired by a newsreel proceeding the Saturday matinee, decided he'd break the speed record for skiing despite being a thousand miles from any hills. Such was passion for scientific curiosity (and impressing girls) amid the "Brain Trust" that hung out with the young Gary Paulsen.

"Alan tried once more, getting a lift from an unsuspecting truck by hanging on to the rear corner and hitting the ramp so fast that it gave way and he went through it like a tank, barrels and boards and splinters flying everywhere."

"Wayne completed the only true backward flip off a bicycle but he didn't take the bike with him..."

Of course Shari, ever-the-mom, shakes her head, appalled by what I'm reading her from the book--a sure sign that this book will be absolutely worshiped by young boys. (Shari says that's why I like the book so much.) No, really, it's a book for girls, too. (Rosemary, who can tell you about trying to bounce through the air from the trampoline to the rope hanging from the tree, is going to love this one.) In fact, the only fault that I can find with the book is its size: One hundred and eleven pages is way too brief for so funny a book. Guess I'll just have to read it again...right after I take my government surplus target kite out in the next heavy wind and see if I can…

Richie Partington, MLIS
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Gary Paulsen doesn't disappoint in this hilarious memoir about his younger years. I had to double check to make sure that these stories were real because many of his adventures are so outrageous. In a way, reading about his friend getting pulled behind a car on skis, another friend accidentally hang-gliding, his experience with girls, yet another friend wrestling a bear, and a variety of other extreme sports, has helped me understand the male population so much better. Sometimes boys do stupid things and, while girls aren't exactly sure why, sometimes the boys aren't sure either. Paulsen crafted these events is an interesting way, keeping me wanting to read more. This was a quick and entertaining read; I highly recommend it!

The title of the book i am reading is How angel Peterson got his name. The authors name is Gary Paulsen. I like this book. Because it has interesting because all the interesting stuff he be doing like breaking the world speed record on skis. The main setting is how angel Peterson got his names by doing stuff that is outrageous. The main characters of this book is angel Peterson,Carl,Alan,Emil,Wayne, Bruce are the important characters. The main conflict of this book is how angel Peterson got his name and how many outrageous stuff he did. I wouldn't recommend this book. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. Why i wouldn't recommend this book because of the stuff they do and probably a kid would do it to and get hurt. So as you can see this is what my book is about (less)