Poop Fountain

From School Library Journal (on Amazon.com)

Gr 4–6—Originally published as The Quickpick Adventure Society by Sam Riddleburger (Dial, 2007), this updated version expands upon the scrapbook feel, with pages designed to look like snapshot photos have been taped in, paperclipped looseleaf papers added, and graphic novel–style panels inserted. The outing to the Amazing Poop Fountain at the Crickenburg Wastewater Treatment Plant has never looked so appealing. Laugh-out-loud hijinks tailormade for reluctant readers. A hilarious and well-designed update. --

Adorable and funny!

The River

From Publisher's Weekly…

Nearly two years after being marooned in the wilderness--the experience recounted in Hatchet --Brian agrees to go back, accompanied by Derek, a psychologist who wants to study the strategies and especially the mental toughness that brought Brian through. At first he chafes at the relative comforts, the lack of true challenge, this second time around. All that changes when Derek is struck by lightning and falls into a coma--Brian must raft Derek to the nearest outpost, 100 miles downriver. In attempting this sequel Paulsen has set himself a difficult task, which he meets superbly. The new adventure is as riveting as its predecessor and yet, because of significant differences in the nature of its dramatic tension, is not merely a clone. The experiences of Hatchet , distilled by time, inform Brian's character throughout, so that the psychological terrain of the sequel is fresh and distinct. The older Brian is more reflective and accepting, and these qualities add new dimensions to his interactions with nature. And returning to the north effects a subtle but startling change: instantly, almost unconsciously, Brian finds himself absorbing every detail of the scene around him--taking the scent of the wind, reading the shape of each cloud--and in the process turning inward, finding words superfluous in the face of the wild. There is no dearth of action and physical suspense here, rendered in terse, heart-stopping prose. Paulsen, as always, pulls no punches: a scene in which Brian fantasizes about cutting Derek loose from the raft is as powerful as they come. Ages 12-up. 

Good, although Hatchet is still my favorite.

The Amazing Life of Birds

From Publisher's Weekly…. 

Paulsen's perceptive, funny look at the life of 12-year-old Duane is at once indisputably real and drolly exaggerated. The author gets the beleaguered boy's voice just right as Duane bares all in his journal, admitting, "Lately I've been thinking a lot about the female body. Not in a weird or sick way but not in an artistic or medical way either." When these images pop into his mind, he forces himself to instead envision "elbows ," a tactic that "helps. Sometimes." As he identifies with a baby bird going through its life changes in a nest outside his window, Duane bemoans his zits ("my face looks like I tried to kiss a rotary mower"), cracking voice ("It sounded like somebody hit a bullfrog with a big hammer right in the middle of a croak") and persistent cowlick (which he likens to "that bushy little tail you see on the back of a warthog inNational Geographic "). At school, calamities abound: "a river of stupid" pours from his mouth when a new girl says hello to him (he later smacks her in the head with a volleyball in gym) and after creating a bald spot on his head while trying to cut his cowlick, he is suspected of having—and spreading—ringworm. Though readers aren't likely to encounter all of the humiliations Duane endures, they will identify strongly with his insecurities. After he clumsily causes bookcases and a fish tank to topple in the library, the boy sardonically says, "You gotta love my life." For all the reasons Duane doesn't, readers will. Ages 10-up.

Cute!  

Brian's Winter

From Publisher's Weekly…

First there was Hatchet, Paulsen's classic tale of a boy's survival in the north woods after a plane crash. Then came a sequel, The River, and, last year, Father Water, Mother Woods, a collection of autobiographical essays introduced as the nonfiction counterpart to Hatchet. Now Paulsen backs up and asks readers to imagine that Brian, the hero, hadn't been rescued after all. His many fans will be only too glad to comply, revisiting Brian at the onset of a punishing Canadian winter. The pace never relents-the story begins, as it were, in the middle, with Brian already toughened up and his reflexes primed for crisis. Paulsen serves up one cliffhanger after another (a marauding bear, a charging elk), and always there are the supreme challenges of obtaining food and protection against the cold. Authoritative narration makes it easy for readers to join Brian vicariously as he wields his hatchet to whittle arrows and arrowheads and a lance, hunts game, and devises clothes out of animal skins; while teasers at the ends of chapters keep the tension high (``He would hunt big tomorrow, he thought.... But as it happened he very nearly never hunted again''). The moral of the story: it pays to write your favorite author and ask for another helping. Ages 12-up. (Feb.)

Very good, but I found it a little unbelievable that he would be able to kill a moose…this made things very easy for Brian!

Hatchet

From School Library Journal

1988 Newbery Honor 

Grade 8-12 Brian Robeson, 13, is the only passenger on a small plane flying him to visit his father in the Canadian wilderness when the pilot has a heart attack and dies. The plane drifts off course and finally crashes into a small lake. Miraculously Brian is able to swim free of the plane, arriving on a sandy tree-lined shore with only his clothing, a tattered windbreaker, and the hatchet his mother had given him as a present. The novel chronicles in gritty detail Brian's mistakes, setbacks, and small triumphs as, with the help of the hatchet, he manages to survive the 54 days alone in the wilderness. Paulsen effectively shows readers how Brian learns patienceto watch, listen, and think before he actsas he attempts to build a fire, to fish and hunt, and to make his home under a rock overhang safe and comfortable. An epilogue discussing the lasting effects of Brian's stay in the wilderness and his dim chance of survival had winter come upon him before rescue adds credibility to the story. Paulsen tells a fine adventure story, but the sub-plot concerning Brian's preoccupation with his parents' divorce seems a bit forced and detracts from the book. As he did in Dogsong (Bradbury, 1985), Paulsen emphasizes character growth through a careful balancing of specific details of survival with the protagonist's thoughts and emotions. Barbara Chatton, College of Education, University of Wyoming, Laramie

Excellent!  A popular book here at LBJ MS.  I disagree that the divorce detracts from the story.