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Summary
Summary
In this memoir of a World War II childhood, Paulsen paints a haunting self-portrait of a young boy drawn helplessly into the physical and emotional violence of the adult world. "An indelible account...hallmarked by Paulsen's sinewy writing" (Kirkus Reviews).
Author Notes
Gary Paulsen was born on May 17, 1939 in Minnesota. He was working as a satellite technician for an aerospace firm in California when he realized he wanted to be a writer. He left his job and spent the next year in Hollywood as a magazine proofreader. His first book, Special War, was published in 1966. He has written more than 175 books for young adults including Brian's Winter, Winterkill, Harris and Me, Woodsong, Winterdance, The Transall Saga, Soldier's Heart, This Side of Wild, and Guts: The True Stories Behind Hatchet and the Brian Books. Hatchet, Dogsong, and The Winter Room are Newbery Honor Books. He was the recipient of the 1997 Margaret A. Edwards Award for his lifetime achievement in writing for young adults.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Paulsen's notable adult trade debut, Clabbered Dirt, Sweet Grass , and 16 award-winning YA novels precede this gripping memoir of a tumultuous childhood. ``My mother and I spent the war years in Chicago,'' he begins, explaining that after his birth in 1939 his father left the home to serve as a member of Patton's staff. The unglossed and indelible accounts that follow center on Paulsen's pretty, tough mother. As a toddler he watched her slay a man who had tried to molest him; later, he was all too aware of her sexual indulgences. He was seven when they sailed aboard a troop ship for Manila to reunite with his father. The voyage, however, occasioned still more horrors. With the helpless crew, he watched as passengers from a downed plane were eaten or torn apart by sharks, a scene he details here in all its brutality. In the Philippines, he was to undergo newly shattering experiences, which he relates with candor and feeling. Author tour. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
The acclaimed children's author now writes a children's story for adults--a remarkably vivid, often shocking memoir of his growing up in the US and the Philippines circa WW II. Paulsen's first memories set the harrowing tone: In powerfully precise declarative prose (far removed from the rhythmic lyricisms of his autobiographical Clabbered Dirt, Sweet Grass, 1992), he writes of sitting up late, as a toddler, and listening to the radio while his baby sitter, ``an old woman'' who ``had hair out of her ears and nostrils,'' would drink wine from a jelly jar. ``Father'' was off with Patton; ``Mother,'' a beauty, worked at a munitions factory, and her first extended appearance here is when she kicks to death a tramp who tries to molest her son. Such sudden violence, as well as graphic sex, riddles the narrative: Called to the Philippines to join Father after the war, Paulsen and Mother take a boat across the Pacific; along the way, they see sharks devour many 0survivors of a plane crash. In the Philippines, as Paulsen adjusts to life with his stern father, the violence continues: A man is cut in half by flying debris from a typhoon; Paulsen jumps from a great height and severs his tongue. But there are unexpected boyhood pleasures too: forays into the jungle and into the arms of a young female servant; the wild joy of ``going native'' under the tutelage of a male servant. Mother drinks too much, however, and sleeps around, and Father also loves the bottle dearly--and so, after one drunken, bitter Christmas Eve, Mother drags back to the States a boy who's older, perhaps not wiser, but vastly more experienced. An indelible account of a childhood lived on the edge, hallmarked by Paulsen's sinewy writing, purity of voice, and, especially, by his bedrock honesty. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Paulsen is best known for his young adult fiction, survival stories mainly. Now he tells one of his own. A young boy during World War II, Paulsen was seven before he met his father, who was off fighting. The intervening years were spent with his mother--a kind, good, but lonely woman who frequently sought the company of men, much to Paulsen's unease. Life changed radically for the boy when he and his mother joined his father in the Philippines. Everything was new: the surroundings, his family, even the air felt different. But the change was not necessarily for the better. Alcohol ran his parents' lives, and young Gary was left in the hands of servants. The male servant led him into danger, and the female servant introduced him to sex. Paulsen's writing style is elemental and matter-of-fact, and its simplicity draws readers in. The ingenuous tone is probably a necessity considering the horrors being described: a plane crashing into the ocean, its passengers providing a feast for the sharks; Paulsen's visit to a cave where "body rats" as big as dogs scurry over what used to be people. We take the author at his word as he chronicles this cavalcade of horrors, yet one aspect of his approach gives pause: he seems to remember every single thing that happened to him between the ages of four and nine. All writers, particularly autobiographers, must be allowed license where the nuances of memory are concerned, but Paulsen's seeming ability to recall even the smallest of details eventually becomes an intrusion, making us question where memory stops and imagination begins. Still, this is powerful stuff, a life story so vividly told that you feel like you've watched it happen, rather than just read about it. (Reviewed Jan 15, 1993)0151272603Ilene Cooper
Library Journal Review
In 1945, at age seven, author Paulsen and his mother traveled to battle-scarred Manila to join his father, a military officer who had been absent from Paulsen's life since before World War II. Here, Paulsen vividly chronicles the high adventure of a boy's journey by car from Chicago to San Francisco, his voyage across the Pacific, and his arrival in the Philippines, a feat accomplished in large part by his mother's willing and serviceable promiscuity. Although Paulsen's memory is so vivid that credibility is sometimes strained, his memoir is wonderfully readable. The book is also an interesting portrait of adults as viewed by a child from whom little of the adult world is hidden. Paulsen's prose, usually exercised in novels for young adults, is colorful but unadorned; his story is overfull of drama. Recommended for popular collections.-- Tim Zindel, Sacramento, Cal. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
