NORTHWIND

NORTHWIND by Gary Paulsen

For all the upper elementary and older kids who loved the book Hatchet, Northwind will not disappoint. Leif is an orphaned boy who lives with sailors. When Cholera strikes and people start dying, Leif and another small boy are loaded into a canoe and told to head north. This book tracks that journey and many near death experiences.

 Author Gary Paulsen passed in 2021, and Northwind was published in 2022. There is a substantial amount of author's notes in the back sharing adventures Paulsen had as a boy that he wrote into Leif's story. It is truly amazing. It also becomes very clear how Paulsen was such a genius at writing adventure/survival novels.

Heads Up- D--- is used approx 3 times. Several people die due to cholera and there is some decent description of what infected people went through. Several life threatening situations. Leif is obviously Scandinavian ( most likely Norwegian) and looks to Odin for guidance.