I've just finished Woodsrunner, the latest book by prolific author Gary Paulsen who writes action adventure stories often set in his two "sanctuaries" - the sea and the woods...
It is the story of a 13 year old boy, Samuel, during the American Revolutionary War in 1776 who sets off to rescue his parents who are captured in an attack by British soldiers and Iroquois Indians.
Gary Paulsen is keen not to "sugar coat" the realities of frontier life and of war and so the book is gritty and tough. Each chapter is interspersed with a short non-fiction section which gives more background to aspects of the story - weapons, wounds, covert communication... which I found interesting and useful.
Here is an interview with him from BookPage http://www.bookpage.com/books.php?id=10012790
which ends with the advice to students “I tell young people to read when they tell you not to read and read what they tell you not to read. And I get in trouble sometimes, but not so often. That’s the truth.”
Gary Paulsen is an ardent promoter of reading, and calls television “intellectual carbon monoxide”...
