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Reading and Reviewing Gary Paulsen's Booksby Alexander, Lincoln ElementaryIntroductionI am doing an inquiry project on Gary Paulsen's books. I am reading and reviewing them. This is what I did. I got my project probably because of my teacher, Mr. Jeff. We have these things in our room called book groups. Some of the book groups I have been in have been about books written by Gary Paulsen. These book groups have inspired my interest in Gary Paulsen's books. That is where my project came from. When I did my project I thought I would probably like most of his books because a lot of his books have detail and are about things I like. ProcedureI read five books for my Gary Paulsen literature project. They are: Mr. Tucket, Tracker, Dog Song, Harris and Me, and The Winter Room. Here is what they are about. I started the book Mr. Tucket on 3-6-97 and finished on 3-7-97. The book is about a kid named Francis Alphonse Tucket. He is in a wagon train heading to Oregon with his family and two others. He gets captured by Indians and the whole book is about him escaping and becoming a man of the wilderness. I started the book Tracker on 3-12-97 and finished on 3-13-97. In it, there is a boy named John Brown who's parents died in a plane crash when he was young so his grandparents are taking care of him. Now his grandfather is sick with cancer and can't come deer hunting with him this year because of his cancer. That's not right for John because his grandpa coming with him is a family tradition. The rest of the book is about him tracking this deer and somehow changing. I started the book Dog Song on 3-19-97 and finished on 3-22-97. In it, there is a boy named Russell whose Eskimo village is not doing things the old way. He goes on a quest by himself with a dog team to find the old way again. I started the book Harris and Me on 3-31-97 and finished on 4-3-9. In it there is a boy whose parents get drunk regularly so he moves from family to family and finally ends up with his second cousins. They have a boy named Harris. The book is about the kid learning about the lifestyles on a farm. I made a rating system based on humor, plot, action, characters, entertainment, and an overall rating. I rated each book by numbers: 0 = none, 1 = fair, 2 = okay, 3 = good, 4 = very good, and 5 = great. Here is a chart telling how I rated each book. ResultsAs you can see in my chart I rated the books overall: Dog Song three, Harris and Me five, Tracker two, Mr. Tucket five and The Winter Room two. Interpreting ResultsI have learned a great deal about Gary Paulsen's writing styles. Most of his books are about the out-of-doors. Also his books have many details and don't have the biggest plot, but still are good books because of the details. I have learned a great deal about literature from Gary Paulsen's books. They have opened up a whole new kind of genre to read for me. I have really enjoyed this literature inquiry because it lets me do one of my favorite things: read. New DirectionsNew projects that could be done as a result of my inquiry are reading Gary Paulsen's books and seeing how fast you could read all of them, seeing how long it would take you. AcknowledgementsI would like to thank my teacher, Mr. Jeff. I would also like to thank
my mom for helping me along the way and encouraging me when I needed it.
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