Gone to the Woods by Gary Paulsen

Gone to the Woods, Gary Paulsen’s third-person memoir, is the recollection of a gritty early life leavened by common grace.

Gone to the Woods: Surviving a Lost Childhood by Gary Paulsen. Farrar Strauss Giroux, 2021, 357 pages.

Reading Level: Teen, ages 12-15

Recommended for: ages 15-up

He was a lost child. His father left early to fight World War II. His mother, who grew up wearing flour-sack dresses, found herself rolling in dough after snagging a job at a munitions plant. She was pretty, and lonely, and without a husband the allurements of Chicago proved too much for her. She spent most nights in the bars or with men (or in the bars with men), often hauling the boy along. When word got to his grandmother, the boy was shuffled off to the nearest relative who would take him. That is, at the age of five he boarded a train with a note instructing some kind stranger to transfer him at Minneapolis to a train bound for International Falls. After a harrowing trip surrounded by wounded soldiers, he arrived at the farm of his great aunt and uncle, Edy and Sig.

It was paradise, over too soon when his mother showed up, two years later, with news that she and the boy were going to join his father in the post-war Philippines. Happy family reunion? Nope—both his parents were alcoholics who spent their evenings screaming at each other while their son roamed the streets of Manilla. Dangerous streets, with walls still spattered with blood and remains of natives murdered by the Japanese.

“The boy” in this third-person memoir is Gary Paulsen, author of such Newbery-honored children’s classics as Hatchet and Dogsong. His rough and scarred upbringing proves he came by his outdoor lore authentically. He never reconciled with his parents, but in these early years he lets us see sparks of a transcendent longing and grace. These came in the form of Edy and Sig, an encouraging librarian, and the natural world. Here, for example, Edy welcomes him with fresh bread and honey after that nightmarish train ride:

He took a huge bite and thought about God . . . when he chewed and it tasted so wonderful that it made his jaws ache, he thought that [God ] must have something to do with it: the bread, the honey, the butter, how it tasted, how it all worked.

The very next day Sig took him downriver to hunt mushrooms, and the boy was immersed in natural beauty for the first time. From then on, he would always head for the woods to escape the ugliness and cruelty of home. But he was growing up more or less like an animal until he discovered books, and “‘they opened my brain to see other word-pictures somehow’.”

The narrative ends with Paulsen’s stint in the army, when the idea first came to him that maybe he should write down some of his experiences. His life is not one any boy would or should choose, and hard times didn’t end with his childhood. But he was able to make something of it and connect with millions of readers over the years. That makes this recollection, in its own way, inspiring.

Considerations:

• As you might gather, many of the details are gritty and depressing and probably not for very sensitive or impressionable readers.
• Language is an issue: several misuses of the Lord’s name, but some legitimate uses, and even possible prayers.
• All that said, this is an excellent book for understanding other lives and experiences, and for discussing the concept of common grace in the life of an unbeliever (though I don’t know Mr. Paulsen’s current religious leanings).

Overall Rating: 4 (out of 5)

• Worldview/moral value: 3.5
• Artistic/literary value: 4.75

Also at Redeemed Reader:

Reviews: Two other gritty memoirs in distinctive formats: Hey Kiddo by Jarrett Krosoczka (graphic novel) and Ordinary Hazards by Nikki Grimes (verse).

Reflection: See our discussion of Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet as it relates to environmentalism.

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