Woodsong (1920)

This would be useful in teaching children autobiographies and narratives since it has both in it.

For young-adults or the adventurous of heart. Follow Gary Paulsen's dog sledding adventures around Alaska and through the Iditarod as he explains his dogs' personalities. One of my favorite books as a child and still to this day. Pure, adventurous, engaging, and authentic! ( )

For my review of the book “woodsong” by Gary Paulsen I would like to start by saying that it was built into two parts. The first part of the story is pretty much an autobiography that is a well descriptive story about Gary Paulsen’s life as a dogsled rider. He spends the whole part talking about many of his dogs and his daily life. He adds a huge amount of his book talking about the many life lessons that he learns as he encounters things. I would say that I enjoyed almost every part of this half of the story. It had really funny stories and cool adventurous stories that made you feel almost like the author at times. I did have a slight problem with the book though. When I read books I understand that descriptive sentences are needed but there can be so many that it takes me awhile before finally going on to the next part of each story. I would say that this book is very interesting and that if you enjoy reading about people’s life and dog stories then you will get hooked to the first half of the story.

The second part is Gary’s retelling of the time he joined a major dogsled race around Alaska’s wilderness. He starts it off with how the first day was a fiasco and that he tells how they run out of the chute into the road of a small village. As each day progresses he tells of how he gets sick of the food the people give him and how he starts getting sick. He later recalls saying that a mysterious man kept showing up and helping his dogsled whenever it broke down or got the dogs tangled up. This part of the book is 17 days long and almost every chapter is one day worth. The sled race ends with him saying that everything he has gone through was worth it and that he will probably do it again. It is hard to tell if he does though. I loved this part because it included descriptions of the condition of the race and the reactions of everything he had done. I think that I can say that this part gave me no disappointment and I absolutely suggest to try reading this book.

In all I would give this book a rating of one of my personal favorites and should be a good read for people who love adventure, and life stories of people and their home. Every part of this book will paint a picture in your mind about a white tundra and the coldness of the man’s travel.

This book was a very good book. I liked how the second part of the book was just on the Iditarod race in Alaska. The only thing that I didn't like in this book was that some of the parts in the book were very gruesome. ( )

This is one of the best books I know of. I definitely recommend this!! ( )