between the pages...

"Why do I read?
I just can't help myself.
I read to learn and to grow, to laugh
and to be motivated.
I read to understand things I've never
been exposed to.
I read when I'm crabby, when I've just
said monumentally dumb things to the
people I love.
I read for strength to help me when I
feel broken, discouraged, and afraid.
I read when I'm angry at the whole
world.
I read when everything is going right.
I read to find hope.
I read because I'm made up not just of
skin and bones, of sights, feelings,
and a deep need for chocolate, but I'm
also made up of words.
Words describe my thoughts and what's
hidden in my heart.
Words are alive--when I've found a
story that I love, I read it again and
again, like playing a favorite song
over and over.
Reading isn't passive--I enter the
story with the characters, breathe
their air, feel their frustrations,
scream at them to stop when they're
about to do something stupid, cry with
them, laugh with them.
Reading for me, is spending time with a
friend.
A book is a friend.
You can never have too many.”
― Gary Paulsen, Shelf Life: Stories by the Book

My son was never a big reader. Getting him to sit down and read was always a constant struggle with him. One day, though, everything changed!
A friend of his introduced him to the world of Gary Paulsen. You see, my son is a true lover of the outdoors, and he finally met his match, through an author who shares that same love. There is the saying that goes, "do what you love and the money will follow."  Well, I also now believe, "read what you love and the books will follow!"

The first book that my son read of Gary's was Hatchett:
Brian Robeson, a thirteen year old boy traveling in a small airplane to Canada to spend the summer with his father, is involved in a plane crash in an uninhabited part of the Canadian woods after the pilot dies of a heart attack. Brian then must find a way to survive and in the process, discovers much about himself and becomes a man. The motif within this story is a bildungsroman, or a young boy’s coming of age.

After that one book he was hooked! I soon found Gary Paulsen books at rummage and garage sales. Now my sons shelf is lined with a slew of them.
This led to other books by other authors. Jean Craighead George is one of them. A list of her books can be found here. My son is currently reading My Side of the Mountain by George.

“If books could have more, give more, be more, show more, they would still need readers who bring to them sound and smell and light and all the rest that can’t be in books.
The book needs you.”
― Gary Paulsen, The Winter Room