Gary Paulsen's childhood was difficult. Born on May 17, 1939, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, he grew up with parents who struggled with alcoholism. By age fourteen, Paulsen had run away from home. He worked on farms and even joined a traveling carnival. But one cold night, something changed his life. He walked into a library to warm up. A librarian handed him a book and a library card. "That was it," Paulsen later said. He became an avid reader almost overnight. Years later, Paulsen drew on his love of the wilderness to write Hatchet, the story of thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson, who survives alone in the Canadian forest after a plane crash. Brian's only tool is a small hatchet his mother gave him. The novel became one of the most acclaimed survival stories in young adult literature. It won a Newbery Honor in 1988. Paulsen wrote over two hundred books before his death in 2021. He ran the Iditarod dogsled race twice, sailed across the Pacific Ocean alone, and lived in the Alaskan wilderness. He believed every story he wrote came from real experience. "I write from my life," he once explained.