"Nobody knew exactly when the dark ship came and to be sure at first they could not see it at all but only understood it was there in the thick fog by the smell. There was a drifting stink of death." So begins Paulsen's posthumously published novel -- quintessentially Paulsen in many respects. The cadence of the prose is often mesmerizing as long, meandering sentences cascade into short, clipped ones, and vice versa. The plot is classic Paulsen: a young boy masters his fate by mastering the elements. (This author's mark on the wilderness survival genre is so indelible that Hatchet feels like the archetype.) Here the young boy is Leif, who, after his Norse fishing village is devastated by a plague-like sickness, finds himself in a cedar canoe heading north along the rocky coastline. One final hallmark of a Paulsen book is its ring of authenticity, that sense that the author is writing from a position of knowledge, experience, and authority. He established that credibility in his earlier memoirs, Caught by the Sea: My Life on Boats and Gone to the Woods: Surviving a Lost Childhood (rev. 3/21), and it shows on almost every page of this novel, too. The melancholic, elegiac nature of the book, coupled with the way it distills Paulsen's tremendous strengths into a single novel, makes it a fitting swan song. (c) Copyright 2023. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Inspired by the late Paulsen's lifelong love of the sea and his own journey up the Pacific coast, this captivating saga of survival and self-discovery, his final novel, centers a steadfast and levelheaded child in an apparently Nordic archipelago landscape. After growing up on fishing boats, orphan Leif is abandoned at a fish camp; when the camp's men become infected with cholera, its leader instructs the 12-year-old to head north to safety in a canoe. Finding himself alone with few supplies in early summer, Leif struggles to survive along shorelines and inlets that teem with bears and whales, all described with Paulsen's characteristic attention to detail. As the solitary child travels via canoe, carving his experiences into a piece of wood and dreaming of a mother he never met, he realizes that though "all his life... had not been a safe place," the vast world is his to explore. Spare, survival-oriented prose keeps the reader immersed in scenes difficult and wondrous, offering a glimpse of the sheer awesomeness of nature, showcasing the beauty of the sea and its inhabitants, and regaling readers with a timeless and irresistible adventure that has resilience at its heart. Ages 10--14. (Jan.)

Call this posthumously published novel The Young Man and the Sea (pace Ernest Hemingway) and you'll have a pretty good idea what this survival story is about. The hero of this maritime Hatchet is an orphan named Leif, whose life changes when a deadly plague descends upon his fishing village. To save him and another young boy, Old Carl puts the two kids into a canoe and tells Leif to paddle north to where the air is clear and clean. And so Leif does, but not before the illness finds him and his companion. Sadly, the younger boy dies, but Leif, who becomes deathly ill, recovers to continue his voyage. Paulsen once again demonstrates his extraordinary knowledge of nature and the outdoors as he creates Leif's often-dangerous journey, one that is plagued by huge bears, a whirlpool, unfriendly ocean currents, and more. As he survives various obstacles, Leif begins to feel at one with nature and an ineluctable joy, an emotion that readers will likely find in the pages of this splendid story. Beautifully written, it's classic Paulsen at his best.

A solitary young traveler paddles through an archipelago of natural, often dangerous, wonders, learning as he goes. Though the metaphorical layer lies barely beneath the surface in this short novel, Paulsen's spare prose and legendary knowledge of the challenges and techniques of wilderness survival make the journey through a landscape that evokes historical Scandinavia compelling reading. Sole survivor--and that just barely--of the gruesomely depicted cholera that sweeps through his camp, 12-year-old Leif comes away with a dugout canoe, a few basic outdoor skills, and the command from a dying, respected elder to head north. Subsisting largely on blackberries and salmon, he travels a winding route through fjords and a seemingly endless string of islets and inlets where he finds both danger and delight in searching for food and shelter, literally coming face to face with bears and whales, struggling to survive a deadly tidal whirlpool, and coming to understand the importance of seeing and learning from the ways and rhythms of "this place and all places that will come to me." Calling on memories, Paulsen writes in an autobiographical afterword of his Norwegian immigrant grandmother's tales. References to Odin and whalers give the setting a timelessly folkloric feeling. Final art not seen. A voyage both singular and universal, marked by sharply felt risks and rewards and deep waters beneath. (Historical adventure. 9-13) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.