Gary Paulsen

Gary Paulsen was born in Minneapolis and had a hard childhood. His parents drank heavily, the family moved often, and he did badly at school. He credited a librarian who gave him a library card and books to read with turning his life around.

He served in the US Army, then worked as a field engineer, a magazine editor, a farmhand and a trapper while he learned to write. He also raced sled dogs and ran the Iditarod twice in the 1980s. That life outdoors fed most of his more than 200 books for young readers.

Hatchet (1987) follows Brian, a 13-year-old who survives alone in the Canadian woods after a plane crash with only a hatchet. It argues that patience, attention and failure teach more than any rescue. It won a Newbery Honor, as did Dogsong and The Winter Room, and it grew into a five-book series. He died in 2021 in New Mexico, aged 82.