Usually when I finish a book, I have something to say about it. Now's one of the times I can't form sentences to describe what is one of the most beautiful books I've ever read.

I cried, I laughed, and I sat on the edge of my seat, scared, hopeful, nervous. Gary Paulsen wrote well, and I mean really well, and his emotions bled through the pages.

Running the Iditarod is insane. That I've always known. But I hadn't before realized just how driven and determined the people running it are.

Edit. I was sobbing when he described the bond between the human and the dogs, how loyal the dogs are, and how bloody the history of sled dogs is.

Amazing to read...I knew absolutely nothing about any of this stuff and am fascinated by it. The author is really funny and a relentless optimist. I will consider naming a dog Cookie should I ever get one.

Sometimes Kerr reads aloud as we call it a night, and this was a joy for that purpose; we spent significant portions laughing, occasionally even to the point of tears.

That said, do I think this was Paulsen's best writing? Not even close. Do I think Paulsen was a fantastic musher or an ambassador for the sport? Not really. I'm mostly ignorant when it comes to running dogs, and even I knew he was almost always doing the wrong thing.

But for all of his turns as a complete dumbass, this is an endearing read. Cookie, for instance, sounds like an amazing dog, and it did nothing to change my impression of the Iditarod, that it's a beautiful terror and that in another life I might have wanted to give it a try.

[2 stars for Paulsen's writing [his repetition at times drove us both nuts] + 1 star for Cookie + 1 star for laughing with my love is 4 stars.]

Loved listening to this audiobook, read by Danny Campbell. I was entirely captivated by Gary Paulsen’s memoir on training for and running the Iditarod. Pure insanity. I couldn’t look away.


‘Do you like the race so far?’

I looked at her, trying to find sarcasm, but she was serious; she really wanted to know. And I thought of how to answer her.

I had gotten lost, been run over by a moose, watched a dog get killed, seen a man cry, dragged over a third of the teams off on the wrong trail, and been absolutely hammered by beauty while all this was happening. (It was, I would find later, essentially a normal Iditarod day — perhaps a bit calmer than most.) I opened my mouth.

‘I …’

Nothing came. She patted my arm and nodded. ‘I understand. It’s so early in the race. There’ll be more later to talk about …’

And she left me before I could tell her that I thought my whole life had changed, that my basic understanding of values had changed, that I wasn’t sure if I would ever recover, that I had seen god and he was a dog-man and that nothing, ever, would be the same for me again, and it was only the first true checkpoint of the race.

I had come just one hundred miles.

This is our favorite read-aloud ever. I've homeschooled my children now for about 15 years and in that time, I've read-aloud to them for approximately one hour per day. I probably read this to them for the first time 10 years ago but the "The Skunk Chapter" is still a frequent request on days when we are looking for something to lighten the mood. Every member of my family has this book in hardcover. I've got two copies so that I can lend one without fear.

If you like dogs, you will love this book but it isn't just about dogs, or animals, or even the Iditarod; although, all of those things play a prominent role. It's about being drawn to something that's bigger than you can handle but being unable to resist the pull. It's about beauty. It's about seeing the world in a different way. It's about what happens when your alligator dreams overload your hummingbird behind....you grow and often the growing pains are hysterical. It's about how what you are drawn to, shapes you and changes you and maintaining your sense of humor while it does.

Since I've recommended this as a read-aloud, I'll just add that some on-the-fly editing may be necessary for language issues and younger children. I suggest keeping a chapter ahead so that you know what's coming.

I love true stories of people, against all odds and common sense, doing the seemingly impossible and definitely improbable with a sense of humor. Winterdance is laugh out loud funny. I don't recommend reading this anywhere you will get sidelong glances for chuckling to yourself. Gary Paulsen's writing is gritty, witty and wonderfully real. I highly recommend Winterdance to anyone who has ever dreamed of chucking it all and heading out on a fine adventure.

A great read. Sometimes Paulsen's a little too hyperbolic for my taste but an overall recommend to everyone type read.

Award-winning children's author, Gary Paulsen, has another life besides just being a children's author. He draws on his experience as an avid outdoors man to write his amazing books, i.e., Hatchet, Brian's Winter.

Within the first couple pages of Winterdance, Paulsen is careening around in the Minnesota back woods on a sled that is being pulled by a pack of dogs. The book could end right then and there as he goes off the edge of a cliff, but he manages to survive and so do all his dogs. That somehow inspired Paulsen to decide that he wanted to run the ultimate of dog sledding events -- The Iditarod. He titles his book, The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod because he knows how crazy this pursuit truly is. Yet he begins his preparation as his wife questions his sanity.

There begins a remarkable journey. He has to acquire the appropriate dogs to pull his sled, he has to train himself for the hundreds of hours of running, he has to prepare himself for the lack of sleep and a lack of food. While all this sounds like a trip through Hell, Paulsen tells his tale -- or tail -- in a hilarious and incredible voice. Laugh out loud as you read about him racing through the night woods and being sprayed by skunks so many times he can't even open his eyes by the time he pulls up to his house in the dawn-breaking hour. For awhile he's riding around in a VW bug as his dogs -- some of them as insane as he is -- are pulling him around as if he was in a Radio Flyer red wagon.

As the time draws near to the start of the Iditarod, Paulsen and his dogs are ready. His description of the beginning of the race is hilarious as he and his dogs run through people's backyards in an effort to find the course! The reader realizes how high the stakes are when he describes the possibility that he could be running along for hundreds of miles, only to discover that he's on an ice flow as he and his dogs pitch off the edge and into the ocean -- never to be heard from again. As he writes about the Burn, and all the other aspects of the race, you will feel all the ups and downs of actually running the Iditarod yourself. One minute you're laughing hysterically, the next minute you're on the edge of your seat trying to read fast enough to know whether he's going to die. Of course in a rational moment you know he doesn't die -- he's gone on to write dozens of books since he published Winterdance. But it's easy to forget that when you're in subzero temperatures, being pulled by 12 crazy running dogs and facing down an angry moose that is about to attack!

I was literally up until 2:00 in the morning last week -- on a weekday with work looming ahead of me in a few short hours, laughing. And this was the third time I've read this book!

It's no surprise to me that this book won an Alex Award years ago. Now, whenever someone asks me to recommend a good book for someone who doesn't like to read, I recommend this one! Given that I've read it three times and recommended to no less than 50 people, there has been plenty of time for me to hear back from all those reluctant readers and not one has come back to me to tell me that they didn't like it. In fact, everyone I've recommended it to has come back to tell me how much they loved it, especially the part about Paulsen eating the moose chili. Yep, that's the part I was laughing about at 2:00 a.m. Pick up this book and laugh out loud!

Memoir following Gary Paulsen's first Iditarod race- covers a timeline from the beginning of training all the way to the end of the race in Nome.

Gary Paulsen seems like such a fun crazy guy. Most people know him as the author of "Hatchet," but the stories of his actual life are just as wild as his fiction (and probably more so in my opinion). He clearly loves his dogs and the wilderness, but he also very obviously learns what he's doing as he goes along. The book has a very down-to-earth and humble tone. He is not trying to impress you with these stories, he's just having fun telling them (with maybe just a hint of exaggeration thrown in? but who's to say)--whether that be being sprayed by skunks, or attacking a moose hallucination, or his constant thoughts that "the next stretch of the Iditarod surely can't be as bad as people say" this book is a hilarious and wild ride and I think basically everyone would really enjoy it.

Keywords: dogs, wilderness, Alaska, sled racing, man/animal relationships, danger, adventure, memoir, passion.

This book graphically portrays one man’s entry into the Iditarod dog race from Anchorage to Nome, and it would be a great read especially in summer because his descriptions of the cold made me reach for a cup of hot coffee or tea. Paulsen was a novice when he entered the first time, but he convincingly conveys how the adventure into the Alaskan wilderness gripped him and never let go. His love for his dogs comes through loud and clear, and after reading this book, I almost felt like I’d made the trip myself.

This was a Book Talk Alaska selection, and I laughed so hard while I read it that I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to talk intelligently on the air. Hilarious. Although guest Libby Riddles had her doubts about what parts were really Paulsen's story, she said they were at least some musher's story.

I have shelved Gary Paulsen's books for many years without seeing this one. His tight narrative and laugh-out-loud stories about one of the most famous dog races in America is truly a gift. This is especially so given that Paulsen was a newcomer to the Iditarod and Alaska. The beauty of Alaska and the relationship between mushers and dogs running in that beauty gives one pause. A quick read but truly an outcome of great journaling.