Woods Runner

• Genre: Fiction; young adult historical
• Originally Published: 2010
• Reading Level/Interest: Lexile 870L; grades 7-9
• Structure/Length: 19 chapters and epilogue plus author’s note and afterword; approx. 176 pages; approx. 3 hours, 42 minutes on audio
• Protagonist and Central Conflict: In 1776, after British soldiers attack his Pennsylvania settlement and kidnap his parents, 13-year-old Samuel tracks the soldiers to New York. In his quest to rescue his parents, he witnesses the brutality of war but also meets new friends and allies.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Violence of war

Gary Paulsen, Author

• Bio: 1939-2021; born in Minnesota; struggled in school as a child, but grew to love reading; on the path to becoming a successful writer, worked in hunting and trapping and took up dogsled racing; after serving in the US Army, became a corporate aerospace field engineer; wrote adult fiction, nonfiction, and plays, but most well-known for his young adult stories of survival, nature, and coming of age; awarded Newbery Medal Honor citations for Dogsong (1985), Hatchet (1986), and The Winter Room (1989)
• Other Works: The River (1991); Winterdance (1994); Brian’s Winter (1996); The Trunsall Saga (1998)

CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:

• The End of Childhood and Transition to Adulthood
• Civilization Versus Wilderness
• The Difference Between Justified and Gratuitous Violence