Northwind

Recommended Ages: 10+

Gary Paulsen’s last novel.

While the cover of Paulsen’s newest book is absolutely captivating, what truly made me grab this book off the shelf is that it was the newest Gary Paulsen novel.  Hopefully, you are a fan of Gary Paulsen, but if you have not encountered much of his writing, then you are in for a treat. He has always been a go to favorite for those struggling readers who want action and adventure.  

Northwind opens with the backdrop of an orphan boy whose misfortunes lead him to essentially be a slave on various fishing vessels until he is left with Old Carl and another young child known as Little Carl.  Lief, the orphan boy of about 13-14 years of age, must flee his village due to the death sickness that arrived on what is named the death ship.  Lief is tasked with not only fleeing North to safer air but must take care of Little Carl as well.  

While I enjoyed this novel, I think the age recommendation for 10 to 14 is fairly accurate as the opening of the book is gut wrenching.  In the early chapters of the book, death is central as the boys are thrust from the town to save their lives; however, not long after Little Carl becomes ill with the sickness as does Lief.  Little Carl dies in the canoe they set sail in and Lief awakens from the sickness to find him dead.  The descriptions may be a little much for some readers as Paulsen writes “If the outside of the canoe was a thing of beauty and graceful joy, its interior was something out of a grotesque nightmare.  Jammed in paralyzed rigor into the bow was the deceased body of the small boy —Little Carl —covered in released stomach and anal gore” (32).  “...he reached in, took Little Carl up and out in lifting stages, carried him stumbling to the water, and cleaned him as he had cleaned himself, scraping the mess away until the the little body was finally clean.  Then he wrapped Little Carl in one of the blankets Old Carl had put in the bundle and laid him carefully on the ground...He did not want to leave him here because animals—bears—would find him...” (39).  Lief goes on to find a perfect island to bury him on.  

There are other instances as well where Lief almost dies from encounters with a whirlpool, bears, whales, and the natural elements.  Death is present on Lief’s mind, but he ultimately recognizes a sense of peace and joy that he has no control on what happens in some of these encounters.  The idea that man cannot control what nature does.  Another central component is that this book presents the mythic beliefs of Norse Mythology.  Lief contemplates the things that Odin has protected him from or allowed happen to him and that if he were to die, he would go to Valhalla.  These notions are repeated several times throughout the story.  

“At last he could paddle no more and he leaned back to rest and let the currents take them.  And he knew now that the spirit of the boat, and the spirit of little Carl, and his own spirit had become one.  And he thought, the boat has eyes, has our spirits mixed with its own, let it find the way.  Let the Norse spirits find the island” (44).  

“He had the canoe.  And the canoe spirit.  They would be with him” (51).  

“And he made a vow now to Odin” (153). 

“It was here that he met the ghost of his mother” (199).  Lief consistently dreams of his mother, but he can never see her face in his dreams.  This actually comes before his encounter with a gray well that he sees as having the same nature that his mother must have had.  

The story does also offer thoughts and insights that will make your readers think and consider things from different perspectives.  

“...hunger, pure raw hunger was the driving force of everything in nature.  Anger, of course, but anger based on hunger, and in the same thought, looking down at the dead salmon he had speared and would eat, he decided he did not want only that in his life.  For his life.  Did not want to be only hunger” (107-108). 

“He was learning... No, not just that.  He was learning to learn; knowing more” (178). 

“They always followed the ship waiting for garbage and that’s what he felt he had come to be: garbage.  But Old Carl stopped him.  ‘It might get better,’ the old man had told him, ‘or it might get worse.  We never know what is coming.  All we know is that it will change —and what if it’s something good that you miss because you gave up?  Remember, it’s only the water around your boat that counts.  Everything else is just spit’” (182-183).  This passage is conveyed as Lief remembers his treatment on the ships and the time he almost jumped into shark infested waters because he wanted the torture and pain to end.  As this does raise the topic of suicide, you may want to have a bit of caution depending on your reader.  

There are two instances of damn being used in the novel, but nothing else of controversy or profanity.  

“Because I’m a damn fool” (152). 

“...which in his mind he now thought of as The Damn Thing...” (175). 

Lastly, in the Author’s Note, Paulsen reveals that the sickness that took the men and Little Carl was Cholera.  It was also his grandmother’s stories and his own sailing experience that influenced the writing of this book.  “I’ve been working on this story a long time.  All my life, really” (232).  Paulsen died in October of 2021.  Reading this story through that context provides a glimpse at something unique and beautiful of the last story Paulsen had to tell.