“But the species is a mess.” His throat tightens. “I don’t have anything against individuals,” he says. Paulsen is an unapologetic misanthrope, children excepted. Paulsen restlessly ricochets around the globe: training horses in New Mexico, running dogs in Alaska, riding his Harley across the American West, gunkholing around the South Pacific in his beat-up sailboat. But his publisher can barely keep track of where to forward them, since Mr.

Paulsen receives hundreds of letters a day. “If I have a kid who’s a reluctant reader, all I have to do is hand him one of Gary Paulsen’s books,” she said. Teri Lesesne, who teaches children’s literature at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Tex., has noted a special power in Mr. “He’s always lived his life on the edge and survived true adventures, but he’s not just an action man he also knows how young people feel and think.” “Gary Paulsen’s writing is very authentic, and kids sense that,” said Margaret Tice, coordinator of children’s services at the New York Public Library and a member of the Newbery committee. He has won three Newbery Honor awards: for “Dogsong” (1985), “The Winter Room” (1989) and perhaps his best-known work, “Hatchet” (1987), about the only survivor of a plane crash in the Yukon. With more than 26 million books in print, his name is practically synonymous with the wilderness adventure genre. Paulsen is one of the best-loved writers alive. “It was too close.”įor generations of young, mostly male readers, Mr.

“I bought a house in a town near here, and a nice guy, a neighbor, came over to say hi,” he says, wincing. Living like a fugitive from society, the 67-year-old author says, is the only way he can think clearly. “I can’t live in towns anymore,” Gary Paulsen says, enjoying the view from his 200-acre ranch on the outskirts of an old ghost town in the Jicarilla Mountains, 40 miles from the nearest grocery store.

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