Think teenage boys don't read books? They read Gary Paulsen's

Gary Paulsen is one of the country's best-known and most-loved children's authors, but as readers of his adventure stories might expect, he's not one for stuffy presentations.

"So much of my life is so different, I just throw the floor open and answer questions," Paulsen said of the author's talk he will give Monday in Seattle.

While many authors draw on life experiences for novels, few have as much material for background as Paulsen, who is happy to chat about running the Iditarod (twice), sailing the Pacific, eating rabbit brains and fish eyes, getting attacked by a moose or the crazy adventures of his boyhood friends, the subject of his newest book, "How Angel Peterson Got His Name: And Other Outrageous Tales about Extreme Sports" (Random House Children's Books, $12.95). "Whatever they want to talk about," he said in a phone interview from Chicago, an earlier stop on his tour.

The author of more than 170 books, Paulsen is most famous for his popular survival tale "Hatchet" (1989), a Newbery Honor book along with "Dogsong" (1985) and "The Winter Room" (1989). Most of his recent novels have appeared on the American Library Association's annual lists of best books.

"His books are wonderful," said Georgia Lomax, who manages the Covington Library and describes herself as a "big fan." "There's lots of adventure and excitement."

Paulsen's lean, sparse writing style is often compared to Steinbeck and Hemingway in reviews. With a fast pace, plenty of action and few subplots (some, like "Hatchet" and "Voyage of the Frog," focus almost entirely on the protagonist), Paulsen's books are "heavily recommended" by librarians and teachers to reluctant readers, especially boys, Lomax said.

"He gives kids and teens credit," Lomax said. "The books aren't written down to them."

"Angel Peterson," which came out last month, is dedicated to 13-year-old boys, noting "the miracle is that we live through it." He sets the scene of his youth in a small Minnesota town in the 1950s — a time when kids lived without TV, video games, private phones or sometimes even electricity.

An early 'Jackass'

So kids created their own fun, even if it meant risking their lives. Before "Jackass" could even be blamed, friends helped friends attempt the stupidest stunts. Paulsen racks it up to "thirst for what can only be called scientific knowledge": "What exactly would happen to Carl if he went over 74 miles an hour on a pair of Army surplus skis?" Or what would happen if a boy jumped a Ford with a one-speed bicycle? A friend wrestled with a bear at a fair?

When asked if his publicist's claim that "Gary Paulsen invented extreme sports" is like Al Gore inventing the Internet, Paulsen laughs. "Back then, it was just stuff we played with," he said. "Reliving those memories was just a hoot."

While noting that kids do more vicarious living now through TV and video games, "show them a skateboard or bike and they'll do extreme things," he says. "They still want to do that stuff. The minute they get hold of a device, off they go."

The prolific author of both fiction and nonfiction for children, teens and adults, Paulsen has dabbled in science fiction ("The White Fox Chronicles," "Transall Saga"), historical fiction ("Soldier's Heart" about the Civil War, the "Tucket" series on the Oregon Trail), and humor ("The Boy Who Owned the School," "Harris and Me").

While "Nightjohn" and "Sarny: A Life Remembered" feature a slave girl as protagonist, most of Paulsen's teen novels center on a teenage boy who overcomes physical and emotional hardships to become stronger, wiser and self-reliant. Sometimes the narrator is nameless and usually has either temporarily or permanently lost his parents.

Troubled childhood

Paulsen is honest about his troubled childhood. "My folks were drunks," he says simply, "so I fostered myself to the woods a lot."

Many of his books, be it the autobiographical "The Beet Fields: Memories of a Sixteenth Summer," which starts with him running away from his drunk mother and ends with him enlisting in the Army, or his novels, in which teens realize they don't need an adult to survive, are informed by his mostly self-sufficient childhood.

Paulsen answers most of his 250 to 400 letters a day with a form letter, but he personally writes back to the kids who identify with the abuse and drug problems that serve as backdrops in his books. "I try to tell them how to get help with whatever it is," he said.

When he started running away from home at age 14, police officers would just send him back (though one stole all his money first). Now, he says, there are a lot more resources for kids, whether they're flunking a class (Paulsen had to repeat ninth grade) or dealing with an abusive parent.

Even if children don't face immediate dangers like the characters in "Hatchet" or "Voyage of the Frog," they identify with the theme of survival because "they do it every day," said the grandfather of two. "Kids are besieged by the whole system of life, struggling for cultural and emotional survival."

His favorite thing about kids' letters, he says, is "their honesty. If they don't like it, they'll tell you. And they'll also tell you if you're right."

In response, "I try to tell the truth about things." His books don't always serve up happy endings and address often brutal topics — death, war, hunger, abuse — with straightforward prose.

"Writing for adults is a waste of time," he said. "You're not going to affect much." With kids, however, "you have a chance to reach them at an early enough age to have some effect."

His first Iditarod

He enjoys writing humor books and plans to write more picture books, maybe venture into poetry. He's written a few screenplays but isn't too impressed with the results. Movie-making is "so collaborative," he said. "You can't do anything individual."

He dismisses the movie version of "Hatchet" (called "A Cry in the Wild") as "not very good" and he was mostly amused when "Winterdance," his nonfiction book about running his first Iditarod, was credited for inspiring the Disney movie "Snow Dogs."

"The dogs talk, there's no Iditarod — there's almost nothing in it from my book," he said, noting he didn't write the screenplay. "But it was funny as heck."

Paulsen's wife, artist Ruth Wright Paulsen, illustrated several of his picture books and owns a gallery in New Mexico, where they own what Paulsen dubs a "shack in the mountains."

He spends much of his time on a 28-foot sailboat named "Scalawag" ("It was the name on it and it's bad luck to change it") with no motor and "a bucket for a head (toilet)." He's been sailing the Pacific for nine years, to Fiji, Mexico, Hawaii, Alaska and up the West Coast with a stop in Port Townsend.

When he's not sailing, he's writing, often spending 18 hours a day on a book. "It's a good way to live," he says. He no longer drinks, doesn't smoke and eats a lot of brown rice and beans. He drives a truck with 130,000 miles on it.

"I love to write still," he says, "but I don't do much with the money."

From a writing standpoint, Paulsen says his favorite book is "Clabbered Dirt, Sweet Grass," an ode to farm life. To escape his parents, he spent summers working on relatives' farms, many of which lacked electricity and relied on horses for plowing.

But to pick an overall favorite — not an easy task for an author of almost 200 books — he comes back to "Hatchet." A favorite of elementary-school classes, "the movement it started was really phenomenal," he said. " 'Hatchet' really strikes a nerve and gets kids wanting to read more."

'Hatchet' rejected

A lot of his mail comes from boys who didn't like to read but credit Paulsen for hooking them on words. When he started writing children's books, he ignored a publisher who discouraged him from writing books for boys "because boys don't read." Even the manuscript for "Hatchet," originally titled "Hope on a Hatchet," was rejected three times.

"I didn't get a big advance and at the time, the book was a minor thing," he said. "Everyone figured it would never go anywhere."

The book spawned two sequels, "The River" and "Brian's Return," as well as an imagining of an alternate ending in which Brian isn't rescued, called "Brian's Winter."

The hunting, trapping and fishing experiences that give the books their realism are highlighted in "Guts: The True Stories Behind 'Hatchet' and the Brian Books." (Unlike Brian, he threw up after eating snapping-turtle eggs.)

Paulsen credits a librarian for changing his life by introducing him to literature in the eighth grade. She ignored his tough-guy lip and handed him a library card and book when he ducked into the building to get warm. Now, he rails against chopping budgets for schools and libraries.

"My God, that should be the last place we cut," he said. "We should starve before we cut schools and stuff for young kids."

In the end, he says, "Kids are all we've got, they're all that really matters."

Stephanie Dunnewind: sdunnewind@seattletimes.com.