Showing results by author "Gary Paulsen" in All Categories

When Janet’s parents divorce, the 15-year-old moved with her mother to the isolated artist colony in Tres Pinos, New Mexico. As the only Anglo girl in her class, Janet feels like an outsider. At night she dreams of an exquisite moonlit stream. On its banks a delicate doe gently sips from the cool waters. Then an Indian warrior appears, an almost poetic vision from a past tie with his bow drawn, ready to strike. Janet’s first encounter with a local Indian proves to be anything but dramatic.

Fifteen-year-old Francis Tucket has been searching for his parents ever since Pawnees kidnapped him from their wagon train on the Oregon Trail. He owes his survival to a one-armed mountain man, Jason Grimes, who came to his rescue. Now Francis owes his life to the mountain man once again. Unfortunately, it's a debt he'll never be able to repay. Grimes is killed defending Francis and his young friends, Lottie and Billy, from a band of marauding robbers.

In 1848, Francis Tucket was stolen from his family while they were travelling west along the Oregon Trail. After his escape, he spent a year learning the ways of the land from a one-armed mountain man. Trying to catch up with his family again, Francis found two stranded children, Lottie and Billy. Together, they're facing the dangers of the old West while making their way to Oregon.

Help young listeners understand the problems of poverty and hunger in Third World countries with this powerful, moving story by award-winning author Gary Paulsen. An orphan in a Mexican border town meets an American army sergeant - and hopes the sergeant will help him cross the border to a better life in the United States.

The year is 2057. Endless wars have torn the USA apart and enslaved Americans to the evil CCR, the Confederation of Consolidated Republics. Growing up in wartime has made 14-year-old Cody Pierce wise in survival skills. Now he’s The White Fox, rebel leader of the children’s barracks in a CCR prison camp. Cody manages a terrifying escape and then plays cat and mouse with the CCR. Every day brings him closer to capture, but closer as well to his goal - to return and liberate the children he left behind.

Tired of being poor, Steven’s father, Corey, is certain that preaching the Word of the Lord is the way to fame and fortune. So father and son take off in their dilapidated truck, with a stolen Bible and a leaky army tent, for a whirlwind tour of small Texas towns. At first, few people come to see the new tent preacher - but each day Corey’s confidence and charisma grow. Soon their fortune is growing, too, especially when they start performing bogus healings. For the first time, they can afford luxuries like expensive hotel rooms, meals in fancy restaurants, even a slick new bike for Steven.

Ever open your locker and find that some joker has left something really weird inside? Seventh grader Dorso Clayman opens his and finds a dead body. Thirty seconds later, it disappears. It’s not the first bizarre thing that has appeared in his locker and then vanished. The ultimate gamesters have decided to make Dorso and his buddy Frank the target of some strange techno-practical jokes. They’ve hacked into the time line, and things from the past keep appearing in the present. Soon, the pranks aren’t funny anymore - they’re dangerous.

Some people lead and some people get out of the way. It’s a universal rule. A cosmic inevitability. Kevin Spencer is one lucky guy. Tina Zabinski, the World’s Most Beautiful, Most Perfect, Best-Smelling Girl, is finally his girlfriend. But now that he’s got the girl, will he be able to keep her?E nter his mortal enemy, Cash Devine. Handsome, smooth-talking Cash is running for class president, and he seems to have his eye on Tina. Kev’s got to dazzle her, so he decides to exercise his great political mind and run against Cash. There’s just one little problem: Kevin has to win. Gary Paulsen continues his exploration of the quirky, inventive mind of fourteen-year-old Kevin in this hilarious companion to Liar, Liar; Flat Broke; and Crush.

They are four different people with four separate lives: Sue, a young woman distanced from her native roots; David, a traveler in search of a dream; Laura, a student seeking her parents’ understanding; and Peter, a rock star struggling to create a perfect sound.One looming fate threatens them all. And everything they love may be taken away in one fleeting second…

His uncle wanted him to stay home and work the farm. But the boy knew there was a world out there he had to see. Yet being a runaway meant you were outside the law - fair game. That’s how he got caught on the farm gang. There was no way out, until Tiltawhirl John picked him up and taught him how to be a carnie, how to stay one step ahead of the suckers. But there was one man from the past even T-John couldn’t keep ahead of. How could the kid keep him from destroying his future?

Carley would rather have been anywhere but here: a town deep in Minnesota’s farm country, with nothing plentiful except poverty. Still, staying with his Uncle David and his family was better than reform school - which was where Carley was heading. Something was eating away at him, making him do crazy things. No one could understand why - least of all Carley himself. But then David took Carley to his blacksmith forge. And under the grim nights and days of the Minnesota fall, under the glow of hot steel, and the most exhausting work he had ever known, Carley began to see a way to shape his life.

>In the winter life in McKinley, Minnesota, revolves around the rinks, where kids play hockey and grown-ups skate to scratchy phonograph records. Then, the year Marsh and his best friend, Willy, are 12, Carl appears at the rink, wearing a battered, old leather flight jacket and doing a strange dance that is both beautiful and disturbing to watch. It is Marsh and Willy who discover the terrible secret behind Carl’s dance, a secret that threatens to destroy him. But a small miracle occurs....

Harold Schernoff, fourteen-year-old science whiz and social outcast, has a theory to solve every problem, from dating to dealing with bullies, to making money, to playing sports, to buying a car when you’re underage. Want to learn to ski? Try: Mass x acceleration x slope of hill = EEEEEAAGGHHH! Here’s another surefire formula: Golf balls + car = BANG!Science turns slapstick when Harold and his buddy team up to test Schernoff’s Discoveries.

Every time Kevin Spencer sees Tina Zabinski, the Most Beautiful Girl in the World, he’s in danger of tripping, falling, and making a fool of himself. He can hardly say a word to her. But Kev knows he’d be the perfect boyfriend for Tina. He’s not bragging. Just pointing out the obvious. Kev decides to take a scientific approach to getting a date with Tina. After all, love is based on chemistry. When new kid Cash Devine zeroes in on Tina, Kevin hustles to find the formula that will make her forget all about Cash.

Today, Molly:Lost her Notebook (her Notebook that contained everything she needed to live. Including her homework), learned her wacky grandma Irene was coming to spend the day at school with her, got a black eye, AND was late to class. And it’s only nine a.m. Could things get any worse? You bet!

Jacob Freisten's goal in life is to be unnoticed. He's perfect at gliding past the jocks' lockers and sneaking into his English class. But he won't be unnoticed now. If he wants to pass English, he has to work on the stage crew of the school production of The Wizard of Oz. Jacob, who's usually in a fog anyway, gets the job of running the fog machine. The problem is that Maria Tresser, the girl of his dreams, is playing the Wicked Witch. Jacob has already made a fool of himself in front of Maria. How can he face her again?

Fourteen-year-old Finn is a loner, living with his dad and his amazing dog, Dylan. This summer Finn is hoping for a job where he doesn’t have to talk to anyone except his buddy, Matthew. Then he meets Johanna, who’s living next door. She’s a graduate student in her 20s, cool and funny, and she treats Finn as an equal. Dylan thinks she’s great too. Johanna’s dealing with breast cancer, and Matthew and Finn help take care of her - and come to care for her.

Mudshark is cool. He’s the go-to guy with the answers, and the mudshark Detective Agency is always on the case. At least, it is until the Psychic Parrot takes up residence in the school library. The word in school is that the parrot can out- think Mudshark. And right now, the school needs someone who’s good at solving problems. There’s an escaped gerbil running the halls’ a near-nuclear emergency in the faculty restroom, and an unexplained phenomenon involving disappearing erasers. Once Mudshark solves the mystery of the erasers, he plans to investigate the Psychic Parrot….

As a punishment for lying, Kevin has lost his allowance. He doesn’t lie now, but he’s broke. He’s got to find a way to make money. Lots of it, so he can impress Tina Zabinski, the World’s Most Beautiful Girl, and ask her on a date. So Kevin gets creative - and his life becomes a financial comedy of errors. Does he really have what it takes to get filthy rich at age fourteen? In Gary Paulsen’s hilarious follow-up to Liar, Liar, Kevin’s schemes lead him into situations that are sweet, some that are sticky, and some that are downright stinky.

For a 16-year-old boy out in the world alone for the first time, every day is an education in the hard work and boredom of migrant labor; every day teaches him something more about friendship, or hunger, or profanity, or lust - always lust. He learns how a poker game, or hitching a ride, can turn deadly. He discovers the secret sadness and generosity to be found on a lonely farm in the middle of nowhere. Then he joins up with a carnival and becomes a grunt, running a ride and shilling for the geek show. He’s living the hard carny life and beginning to see the world through carny eyes. Until her.