Northwind
In his author’s note, three-time Newbery Honor winner Paulsen says he was working on this story his entire life. Inspired by Paulsen’s grandmother’s tales of her native Norway and his own sailing journey up the west coast of North America, Northwind takes readers on a classic Paulsen adventure.
At an undefined point during Viking times, a twelve-year-old orphan named Leif lives with a group of abandoned sailors in a land inspired by both Norway and the American Northwest. When a cholera outbreak sweeps through the camp, Leif flees aboard a canoe, heeding an old man’s advice to keep traveling north. As he paddles farther and farther north, Leif encounters bears, whales, whirlpools, and hunger, each time finding the strength and resourcefulness to protect himself and to grab hold of that most slippery of emotions: joy.
This lyrical bildungsroman does hearken back strongly to Paulsen’s best-known book, Hatchet—especially in the scene where Leif learns to adjust for refraction when spearfishing—but Northwind is much more ethereal and less concrete, written in a style somewhere between traditional prose and a novel-in-verse. And Leif’s journey is different from that of Brian’s. Rather than trying to get home, Leif is searching for home.
Due to its mystical style, Northwind may not appeal to middle-grade readers as widely as some of Paulsen’s other works, but adults who grew up on Paulsen’s tales of adventures should definitely take a look. The literary world lost a giant when Paulsen died last year, but with Northwind, he left a beautiful parting gift. Highly recommended.
