Subtitled The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod, this book chronicles Paulsen's first go at the 1150 mile Iditarod. (He has run it twice.) I had a hard time putting Winterdance down, not because the story was especially suspenseful -- although at times it was -- but because Paulsen is a damned fine writer, and I gobble it up. From the first germ of an idea that he might do the race, through all of the training, to the race itself, the narrative moves seamlessly back and forth between gutbusting humor and nailbiting tension.
Self-deprecating almost to a fault, he tells about incident after incident in which, due to his own arrogance or stupidity, he should have died. However, he finished the race, a fact which he attributes entirely to his team of dogs. Gary Paulsen loves dogs, which is perhaps what led him to the Iditarod in the first place.
If you too love dogs, or you love real-life adventure stories, or you just love good writing, I recommend this book. And then look for Paulsen's other writing. The bulk of his work is written for young adults, and it is very good. I have also read a memoir by Paulsen which I loved, Clabbered Dirt, Sweet Grass, about life on a Minnesota farm.
My copy of Winterdance has a sticker on the cover that says "The true story that inspired the mjor motion picture Snow Dogs." A word of warning: Don't see Snow Dogs! It starred Cuba Gooding, Jr. doing an embarrassingly bad acting job and had less than nothing to do with this book. Paulsen must have been hard up for cash when he sold Disney the rights to this very fine book.
(Cross-posted at Winter Reading Challenge.)
