Woods Runner by Gary Paulsen

Woods Runner Reviews

• 
  Donalyn

  There is a sixth grade boy in my near future (school starts in six weeks) who will think I am the bomb because I handed him this book to read. I hope that Gary Paulsen is richer than King Midas. He deserves every penny for hooking so many young readers.
  
  
• 
  Dan Lutts

  Thirteen-year-old Samuel lives at the edge of the forest on the Pennsylvania frontier on the eve of the American Revolution. Somehow, he’s taught himself woodsman’s skills and spends his time roving in the woods and hunting with his 40-caliber flintlock rifle to provide food for his family and neighbors. His world is shattered when a war party of Iroquois and British soldiers raid the area, killing the inhabitants and burning the homes and outbuildings while Samuel is away in the woods. To his surprise and relief, Samuel discovers that his parents aren’t among the dead but were taken prisoner. He sets out to find then, embarking on a journey that takes him all the way to British-occupied New York. Along the way, Samuel is befriended by people who help him in his quest and he also finds himself a little sister.
  
  Gary Paulsen’s Woods Runner is aimed at young readers around Samuel’s age and gives them a realistic taste of life on the Eastern frontier at the beginning of the Revolutionary War. He doesn’t sugar coat the horrors of frontier warfare but doesn’t get overly graphic about them either. One interesting point was how, unlike Samuel, who ranged deep into the woods, Samuel's parents and neighbors were afraid of venturing too far into the forest and stuck close to its edge. After each chapter, Paulsen has a special page that talks about life in the 1750s as it ties in with the novel, such as how people communicated with one another, life on the frontier, British and American armies, and prisoners of war. I think providing the information is a nice way to teach history.
  
  The book does have some inaccuracies, though. For example, Paulsen has Samuel wearing “smoked buckskin clothing” when by 1750 he would have been wearing clothing made of wool, cotton, or linen such as the Native Americans wore if he was woods runner. And I doubt that he could down a bear with a lightweight .40-caliber rifle, which apparently he had done on many occasions. Samuel’s getting help along the way was fine, but locating his parents when he reached New York was way too easy.
  
  All in all, though, I think Woods Runner is a good novel that introduces young readers to frontier life during the American Revolution.
  
• 
  Kathy

  In the beginning I was bored with Woods Runner. I'm not really a huge fan of survival fiction but I do like some historical fiction. But, I thought the historical notes were distracting because they occur after each chapter. Then I noticed that they were pretty much geared towards what you just read, so they could actually add to the reading. But I didn't like that so I stopped reading them.
  
  My impression of Woods Runner changed drastically after Sam went out hunting the bear. Oh.My.Word. The description of the raids and Sam following the raiders was amazing. I had to read with one eye closed and I had to keep some tissues nearby. Gary Paulsen's details add an additional dimension to the book that never felt intrusive. I could barely put the book down. I actually closed my office door and turned off the overhead light. I did not want to be disturbed.
  
  Woods Runner gave me a different perspective on the Revolutionary War. It's a fast read but it's not easy. The trauma Sam, his parents, and then Annie, experience is haunting. By having us follow Sam as he tries to track down his parents, Paulsen was able to insert the historical aspects without slowing down the story. We learned about the redcoats, their weaponry, the Hessians, war prisoners, and normal people who helped the Americans. It was a nice lesson and didn't feel like you were being "schooled".
  
  I think Woods Runner is better than last year's Notes From The Dog and more in keeping with Hatchet. I see it leaping off the shelves.
  
• 
  Josiah

  Samuel, the woodsy, self-reliant protagonist of Gary Paulsen's Woods Runner, is not unlike Brian Robeson of the famed Hatchet and its sequels. For one thing, Samuel is the exact same age, thirteen, as Brian was when he began his own wilderness epic. Samuel lives off of his wits and supremely fine-tuned wilderness skills deep in the woods of colonial America, away from his parents in much the same way as Brian does when he decides in the later Hatchet books that he would rather not live around people. Samuel's instincts are honed to a razor's edge of awareness; he can discern the type of animal he's listening to and the direction it's moving just from the tiny snap of a twig or the rustle of undergrowth that it disturbs on the forrest floor, and he uses his wilderness expertise to keep himself and his family fed. Little does he realize that the fledgling country he calls home is hovering on the brink of major nationwide disaster in the form of a bloody, torturous war that will leave countless lives shredded in its wake before all is finished.
  
  Samuel is lucky that he doesn't live at home anymore when the armed forces on the British side of the Revolution first strike. They cruelly wring out the life of nearly everyone living in the town where Samuel's parents reside, maiming flesh and bone in repulsive, unspeakable ways. When Samuel notices the think, billowing smoke rising through the trees miles away in the direction of his parents' town, he recognizes by the type of smoke he sees that the fire is man-made, and must signal some kind of awful calamity. He is sickened as he returns to where his parents live and sees the grossly degraded bodies of family friends strewn all over, but at least his parents aren't among the dismembered dead. The only hope Samuel has is to set off in pursuit of the band of soldiers whom he surmises have abducted his parents, and try to steal them back.
  
  Time and again as he stalks the kidnappers, Samuel's life is saved by little surprise twists of happenstance, accidents of pure chance that end up meaning the difference between a grizzly death and an opportunity to continue the chase to locate his parents. This is war, and nothing about Samuel's destiny is set in stone ahead of time. He is as vulnerable to the effects of sudden death wrought by wayward or intentioned musket balls as any other kid caught in the middle of this savage conflict, and he will by necessity have to cheat certain death a dozen times or more just to have a chance of reaching his parents in one piece. Samuel's travels have him tiptoeing a fine razor's edge almost nonstop throughout Woods Runner, teetering constantly on the verge of doom, and this creates an atmosphere of ever-encroaching suspense.
  
  On the road to overtake the marauders who swiped his family, Samuel observes further examples of the waves of death brought about by the war. He sees even the mangled corpses of young children by the way, and personally witnesses the carrying out of atrocities of an equally heartless nature by Hessian mercenaries against innocent American citizens. Samuel doesn't have much personal stake in the outcome of the war, but he can recognize cruelty and horror when he sees it, and instinctively allies himself with the rebels to King George's crown. As he tries to keep pace with the movements of the soldiers who kidnapped his own parents, Samuel meets with other Americans whose tragic stories of grief and family loss at the hands of the British and the Hessians give him even more of a cause for which to fight, and a definite interest in helping to determine who will win out when the sanguine struggle between the most powerful army on earth and the stout American colonists is complete.
  
  Gary Paulsen does a fantastic job of bringing an unconsidered corner of the American Revolution alive in this book. Interspersed with the heartrending action of the story are short segments explaining various technical aspects of the war, and I learned more from these informational historical pieces than I have in all but two or three other books that I have ever read about the Revolution. Story aside, Woods Runner is worth a great deal just for these bits of fascinating nonfiction, which detail parts of the Revolution that I never knew about. There's the introduction of grapeshot ammunition, and how it had the most extreme impact of any new weaponry advancement on suddenly increasing death tolls in battle up until the advent of rapid-fire machine gun artillery in the Great War. There's the treatment of war orphans, which had to be a major issue in this country considering how many American soldiers were killed, but which rarely is talked about in books. Then there's the significant effect that civilian spying had on the entire conflict, including the use of carrier pigeons to relay messages on behalf of the resistance. How important may it have been in any particular battle for the rebels to have even just a vague idea of what was coming beforehand? When an army is made up of farmers and blacksmiths inexperienced in the art of war, I'd have to think that such an advantage could mean nearly everything. All throughout Woods Runner, we come across nuggets of information like this, and many of them were completely new to me.
  
  Woods Runner is a sobering book, doing nothing to glamorize the tribulations of war or make heroes out of its participants. It is a moving exploration of one part of the Revolution, though, and a story told with masterful simplicity that will bring the experience of the war crashing home hard for readers. In my opinion, this is Gary Paulsen near his very best, though I actually would have liked the book to be expanded to maybe three hundred or four hundred pages to be able to deliver the story in more detailed depth. Nonetheless, Woods Runner is a fine novel that I highly recommend, and I would probably give it three and a half stars.
• 
  Tracy

  I loved Hatchet, so when the chance came to read a similar-looking book, I took it.
  
  This book is not another Hatchet. It doesn't try to be. It's trying to teach kids about the atrocities that occurred during the American Revolution, and that's why I don't like it.
  
  I don't think it's just the horrific nature of some of the happenings that ruin this book for me. He doesn't dwell on blood and gore much. It's the lack of character in the name of drawing a picture to teach us, and the little lessons between each chapter are the least annoying aspect of this.
  
  This story concerns Samuel, a 13 year old boy who somehow, in just about a year, has learned everything he needs to know- on his own- to be a fabulous outdoorsman. He is mature, thinks quickly, makes no mistakes of action or judgment, and is not much phased by anything. He needs to know these things so that he can run through the woods (the sole part of this book I enjoyed) and rescue everyone.
  
  Samuel has no personality characteristics beyond perfection. He is occasionally a bit scared, but it doesn't daunt him. He is also occasionally sad, but that does not seem to affect him at all. He is not funny or anxious, petulant, affected in any negative way by the anger he feels, or ever in much doubt as to the proper course of action. He is the most boring and unappealing character I've met in a while. Everyone good he meets is either in need of his help, and meekly follows him because he saves them entirely, and they can't help him in the slightest, or a fellow perfect person. They are also good and never do anything even slightly shady (except try to steal a chicken when starving).
  
  The bad people are very, very bad. We know that the Hessians are worse than the British and the Indians (we are told Iroquois, though we hear nothing about them that would differentiate them from any other stereotypical Indian), but everyone is blindly bloodthirsty. They have no redeeming characteristics at all, not even caring for their fellow soldiers. They are almost as dull as characters as he is. No moral ambiguity whatsoever.
  
  The plot itself is fine. It's exciting. My fourth grader would struggle with the horrors told, but many would not. My problem is that I don't want to see an exciting story told about cardboard characters I can't care anything about. In Hatchet, the boy is terrified. He struggles. His loneliness is eating him up at times. I cared about him. This Samuel, I felt nothing for, except the odd eye roll as he did some more heroics, perfectly.
  
  I'm just not about stories unless they're about believable people.
• 
  Bill Ibarra

  **SPOILER ALERT** Have you ever read a book that has you wondering all day on whats going to happen in the next chapter? If not read Woods Runner. The genre of this book is Historical-fiction. To me this was a great book because I am so interested in the time around the Civil War. With this book make sure not to get too attached to a character or group of characters.
  
  The setting takes place in America when there was only thirteen colonies. Sam wanted to live a happy life with his family but the British came by and ruined everything so Sam was on a hunt to find his parents. The conflict of this book is person vs person because he has to fight British and Indians.
  
  I was angry about how the British did not have any respect for anyone like when they took Samuels's parents because they knew how to play chess and the British just took them with to play chess with. I was satisfied when Sam smashed a brick over a soldiers head.
  
  My favorite part was when Sam found his mom but had to some how break his dad out of a prison. I thought the end of this book was perfect Sam and his parents escaped and lived happily ever after. At the end i was not sure if Sam went with the soldiers that saved him or went with his parents.
  
  This book from me gets 4/5 stars because I just love books around the time of the Civil War and this one was AMAZING. I'd recommend this book to anyone that is memorized by the time of the Civil War. So if you want an adrenaline rush from reading a book read Woods Runner.
  
• 
  Dulci

  Wow! Double wow! Triple wow! This was my first Gary Paulsen novel, and I was blown away. I could not put it down, and just finished it in under 3 hours (that's including interruptions from the kiddos)!!
  
  The tension and excitement has given me a bit of a headache, but the ending was very satisfactory so it was worth it! I really like the history notes Mr. Paulsen includes between chapters. That information adds much to the setting and feeling of the story, but the notes are short enough to not feel like too much of an interruption.
  
  Also, the book is broken down into three sections: Green, Red, Green. Nice touch. Green for the treks through the woodlands, red for the bloodier part of the story. Nothing that really adds to the story itself, but clever just the same. I like it.
  
  This is an incredibly well-written story, a page-turner you won't want to put down! Recommended for kids and grownups alike.
• 
  Judy

  I really didn't feel like reading a novel set during the Revolutionary war, but it was the only book I had on hand so ...
  
  The story begins -- He was not sure exactly when he became a child of the forest. One day it seemed he was eleven and playing in the dirt around the cabin or helping with chores, and the next, he was 13, carrying .40 caliber Pennsylvania flintlock refile, wearing smoked-buckskin clothing and ...
  
  This didn't grab my attention, but it grew on me so by the halfway point, I was hooked. Samuel is a likable 'child' and is a survivor (which I've come to expect from Paulsen), but what I liked about this book is the revolutionary war setting without the politics and battles. And (to my surprise), the historical insights are brief and to the point, so they add to the story without being overpowering. When my nephew is a little older, I'll recommend this as an intro to the events of 1776.
  
  My favorite character: Annie
• 
  Christine Norvell

  Graphic, engaging, heart-wrenching.
  Thirteen-year-old Samuel is caught up in the American Revolution as Redcoats and Iroquois burn homes and farms. Paulsen includes single pages before each chapter that relate facts about the war in this short read.
• 
  Shane

  A fine story, if not very memorable, about a 13 year old boy being dragged into the Revolutionary War. Good reading for a middle school student.
• 
  Lars Guthrie

  A bit of a toss-off for Paulsen, although not in terms of levity. It's the story of a 13-year-old who has learned the ways of the dense forests of colonial western Pennsylvania much better than his immigrant parents. He roams through the wilds for days with his flintlock rifle to keep them in venison.
  
  That means he's away from home when Indian raiders, under the direction of British troops, massacre most of the inhabitants of his little settlement, and kidnap his parents. The American Revolution has arrived.
  
  Samuel Smith sets out after his parents, and runs into the war. Paulsen paints vivid scenes of a boy on the move, scrambling to survive. He finds allies in a band of American irregulars and a traveling merchant who turns out to be a Continental spy. He adopts a sister, a feisty little girl orphaned after a brutal Hessian attack on her parents' farm.
  
  Paulsen is not afraid to get gritty. Depictions of violence and its aftermath balance thrilling action with ugly reality. It makes war, and particularly the Revolution, not such an abstraction. And it's quite brief, even padded with intermittent short asides to give added historical content. Asides that I feel would have been better served in an afterword, as they drain the story's momentum.
  
  A worthy addition to a shelf on the Revolution, maybe next to Laurie Halse Anderson's 'Chains,' 'Woods Runner' is a fast-paced, pretty easily read, slender slice of history and adventure for fourth graders on up.
  
• 
  John

  I read this to my 9 year old son. He is really interested in history and also enjoys adventure books and this one checked both of those boxes. It's a fast moving story with well developed characters and a good plot. We both really enjoyed it and after we finished, it led us into some interesting discussions about the Revolutionary War and the founding of our country. I recommend this book
• 
  Austin N

  I loved the book because it was about this little boy whose parents got murdered and had to fend for hisself. While he was at his house some bad guys came and something bad happened. Read to find out. This book was awesome because if you stopped for a little bit you would always want to read more. It made me feel scared at some points because you never knew what was going to happen next.
  I would recommend this book to people who like violence and outdoors.THIS BOOk WAS LIT.
• 
  Kristen

  Gary Paulsen knew how to write adventure for kids. This one is based at the time of the Revolutionary War and follows 13-year-old Samuel whose parents were taken captive by Redcoats while he was out hunting. With nothing to lose, Samuel determines to follow them to New York City, where most captives are being taken, and somehow free them. Along the way, he meets enemies, but also a number of good souls who give him what help they can. Fast-paced and realistic. Kids should love it.
• 
  Nathaniel

  I didn't think this was a very impressive book, It was enjoyable, but sort of bored me. Samuel, the main character, was interesting, but the value of the story didn't excite me with any good feelings. At some points, it was tense, but the book didn't really make me care. It wasn't a very good book and I wouldn't recommend it.
• 
  Julie Suzanne

  Last year, the 7th graders read this instead of our usual
  My Brother Sam Is Dead, and I'm not sure how it was received by the students. I know they didn't usually love Collier's novel the way we teachers do, and I imagine they would've preferred this one.
  
  This novel will appeal to kids who are outdoorsy and prefer books that don't spare the gory details. Here is how this compares to
  My Brother Sam Is Dead and
  Chains:
  
  --Covers the senseless violence of war, how some people rise to the occasion and help others, and is a true coming of age story
  --Portrays Hessians (the German mercenaries) as barbaric and evil (as well as Native Americans)
  --Shows how disease and the conditions of prison ships contributed to more deaths than actual combat
  
  Paulsen's text is more accessible than Collier's, and both are more accessible to struggling readers than Halse Anderson's. Chains is more diverse and rich with American slave perspective, and My Brother Sam portrays what daily life was like for civilians before, during and after the war and the complexities of loyalties and ideologies when each individual must choose a side when your society decides to revolt. Samuel, in Woods Runner, does not have to struggle with many decisions; the plot drives on and is all adventure/suspense/horror with fewer concepts to digest other than war is brutal, senseless, and in general, sucks to live (or insensibly die) in.
  
  Paulsen interrupts the story when necessary to provide background info right in the book (like little nonfiction pieces that we usually use in the classroom to supplement our fiction). That was interesting, but this adult reader prefers being shown rather than told these things. This is a much easier read and therefore affected me less.
  
  If I were doing lit circles based on Rev War stories, I'd provide as choices this, My Brother Sam is Dead, and Chains (in that order of reading complexity).
  
  
  
• 
  Zach

  Gary Paulsen probably deserves more credit than anyone for my love of reading. When I was young I read a lot of his books, some multiple times. This is the first book of his I have read in multiple years.
  
  Overall I enjoyed the book. It is typical Gary. The book is very historically accurate and is a enjoyable plot overall. My only complaint really is that I didn't like how at the end of each chapter the story stops and you get a history lesson about the Revolutionary war. I didn't need that being the history buff I am.
  
  Middle school Zach would have gave this book at least 4 stars.
• 
  Charles

  Quite enjoyable. Set during the Revolutionary War. An adolescent boy on the frontier is left alone after a combination of British soldiers and Iroquois raid his community and take his parents captive. But Samuel is no typical 13 year old. He's already an accomplished woodsman and he sets out to track down the raiders. There is plenty of adventure along the way. A neat thing about the book, too, is that is has little inserts that give some actual history of the times in which Samuel lived, the weapons, food sources, etc.
• 
  Beau

  I really enjoy reading Gary Paulsens books. He writes about everything I enjoy to read. This book is a book I highly recommend Its about a boy that comes home from his hunt with a burned down cabin. and his parents are missing. As the main character Samuel (boy) goes on his hunt to find his parents he comes a crossed a lot of situations.
• 
  Brittany Helmuth

  The book was okay. I like the concept of the story being about a boy who wanted to rescue his captured parents during the revolutionary war. I found this book boring and hard to get through. For it being a children's chapter book I found it to be slow paced. I love history and I found Woods Runner a very dull read.
• 
  Jillian

  I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book with my sons. (10 & 8) Samuel showed great courage, strength & kindness. We learned about the Hessians, the Redcoats, the Patriots & the Revolutionary War. There are some gruesome scenes & I would sometimes soften it for them. But mostly I read every single word out loud for them. We will be adding more Gary Paulson books to our list!
• 
  Melissa Smith

  Woods Runner is set in early America at the beginning of the Revolutionary War. Although I have read quite a bit of American history, this book gave me a new perspective. This was less about America versus the British and more about survival in a time of war and change. I'll definitely add this to my recommendations for students.
• 
  Wendi Lau

  Good book! As a trail runner, I appreciated the running through forests part but the writing was so riveting I only thought about why he was running 15 miles a day. Mr. Paulsen’s writing style is compelling without embellishment or excess.
  
  New info to me about the poor treatment of prisoners of war by the British and also the ruthless behavior of the Hessian troops. This would be a good read to supplement middle school history. I liked that Mr. Paulsen talked to the reader about how different the times were and how remarkable to come out the other side an independent nation.
• 
  Connor

  If you're looking for a great historical book about the Revolutionary war then this is the book.
  This book fallows the character named Samuel. Who fallows a group of British solders to try and get something very very important to him. Through out this book it gives you information about the solders who fought in the war, what solders have control of which states and even what types of weapons they used during the war.