The Tucket Adventures Mr. Tucket (1968) (also known as Chance for Escape) Call Me Francis Tucket (1995) Tucket's Ride (1997) Tucket's Gold (1999) Tucket's Home (2000) Tucket's Travels(2001)

Brian's Saga Hatchet (1987) (Has an alternate ending which makes a continuity with Brian's Winter) The River (Hatchet: The Return) (1991) Brian's Winter (Hatchet: Winter) (1996) Brian's Return (Hatchet: The Call) (1999) Brian's Hunt (2003

Murphy series Murphy (1987) Murphy's Gold (1988) Murphy's Herd (1989) Murphy's War (1990)

Non-Fiction

The Grass-Eaters: Real Animals (1976) The Small Ones (1976) Hitting, Pitching, and Running (1976) Martin Luther King: The Man Who Climbed the Mountain (1976) Dribbling, Shooting, and Scoring (1976) Careers in an Airport (1977)

Tackling, Running, and Kicking (1977) Riding, Roping, and Bulldogging (1977) Farm: A History And Celebration of the American Farmer (1977) Running, Jumping, and Throwing (1978) Successful Home Repair: When Not to Call the Contractor (1978

Forehanding and Backhanding (1978) Hiking and Backpacking (1978) Downhill, Hotdogging and Cross-Country (1979) Facing Off, Checking and Goaltending (1979) Launching, Floating High and Landing (1979) Pummeling, Falling and Getting Up-Sometimes (1979) Track, Enduro and Motocross (1979)

Canoeing, Kayacking, and Rafting (1979) Going Very Fast in a Circle (1979) Athletics: Focus On Sport (1980) Ice Hockey: Focus On Sport (1980) Motor Cycling: Focus On Sport (1980)

Motor Racing: Focus On Sport (1980) Skiing: Focus On Sport (1980) Tennis: Focus On Sport (1980) T.V. and Movie Animals (1980) (with Art Browne, Jr) Money Saving Home Repair Guide: Successful Home Improvement Series (1981)

Sailing: From Jibs to Jibing (1981) Beat the System: A Survival Guide (1982) The Madonna Stories (1988) Woodsong (1990) Eastern Sun, Winter Moon (1993)

Full of Hot Air: Launching, Floating High, And Landing (1993) A Guide for Using Hatchet in the Classroom (1994) Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod (1994) Father Water, Mother Woods (1994) Puppies, Dogs, and Blue Northers (1996)

My Life in Dog Years (1998) Pilgrimage on a Steel Ride: A Memoir of Men and Motorcycles (1997) All Aboard: Stories from Big Books (1998) (various authors, including Paulsen excerpt?) Zero to Sixty: A Motorcycle Journey Through Midlife (1999) (reprint title of Pilgrimage on a Steel Ride)

Guts: The True Stories Behind Hatchet and the Brian Books (2001) Caught by the Sea - My Life on Boats (2001) How Angel Peterson Got His Name (2003)

) Murphy's Ambush (1995) Murphy's Trail (1996)

The Cookcamp (1991)

Alida's Song (1999)

Dunc's Doll (1992) Culpepper's Cannon (1992) Dunc Gets Tweaked (1992) Dunc's Halloween (1992) Dunc Breaks the Record (1992) Dunc and the Flaming Ghost (1992) Amos Gets Famous (1992) Dunc and Amos Hit the Big Top (1993) Dunc's Dump (1993) Dunc and the Scam Artists (1993) Dunc and Amos and the Red Tattoos (1993) Dunc's Undercover Christmas (1993) Wild Culpepper Cruise (1993) Dunc and the Haunted Castle (1993) Co

Prince Amos (1994) Coach Amos (1994) Amos and the Alien (1994) Dunc and Amos Meet the Slasher (1994) Dunc and the Greased Sticks of Doom (1994) Amos's Killer Concert Caper (1994) Amos Gets Married (1995) Amos Goes Bananas (1996) Dunc and Amos Go to the Dogs (1996) Amos and the Vampire (1996) Amos and the Chameleon Caper (1996) Amos Binder, Secret Agent (1996) Dunc and Amos on Thin Ice (1997) Super Am

Nightjohn (1993) Sarny (1997) The Tucket Adventures Mr. Tucket (1994) Call Me Francis Tucket (1995) Tucket's Ride (1997) Tucket's Gold (1999) Tucket's Home (2000) World of Adventure

Things to Notice and Talk About

You'll want to focus on the Foxman as the book does. What caused his disfigurement? Notice the ways in which he deals with it, living away from society, hiding his face even hiding himself so that the boys don't have to look at him. Find examples of his behavior which show his constant awareness of his physical appearance. Imagine the horror of being horrible to look at.

Look at some of the minor characters here. The uncle is concerned about the boy. He asks if he is happy and if he knows the woods well enough now so that the uncle can relax a bit when the boy is gone for long periods of time. Does the uncle know about the Foxman?

What about the person who brings the supplies once a year to the Foxman? What does he/she know? How does that person deal with it? How was the routine established? Did the Foxman go to town once?

The Foxman says at one point, "Science kills beauty." What does he mean? What is his example of knowledge ruining wonder? What are some other examples? Talk about the effects on both boys of knowing the Foxman. Why is Carl's reaction different than his cousin's? What will change in the boy's life after this book? Will he stay in the north? with the family? alone? Will he go back to his alcoholic parents? Finally, there is the burning of the cabin with the Foxman and all he owns inside. Is that what Foxman wanted? Why did the boy take only the fox pelt? Was he right?

Another quote says that the storytellers are "plucking roses from manure." What about that one? Can you cite examples of it in the book and in life? There is violence throughout this anti-war novel. Pick out the references to it and debate their cause and effects. Speaking of alcoholism, investigate Alanon and Alateen. Could they have helped the boy? The battle of Verdun in World War I is talked about in the book. Find out what you can about it. We're hearing a lot about poison gas now in the Middle East. What was said about it then? Why was it outlawed? Can there be rules to war? Who makes the rules? The work on the farm is important to the book. Everyone does his or her share, even the animals. Talk about the draft horses. Do some research on the different breeds and their particular strengths. The cold plays a part in this story. He talks about the blue of cold. What does he mean? Frostbite is dealt with. Is rubbing snow on frostbite recommended? At one point the boy is freezing to death. Are his experiences consistent with those of real people in the cold? What about snow-blindness? Is it a real thing? Talk to an eye doctor about it. How would the author have known about such things?

A distinction is made in the book between killing and hunting animals. How do you feel about it? Is hunting still necessary? Is there a connection between the killing of animals and the killing during war in Foxman? Is trapping necessary? Why? Is there a humane trap? Contact animal rights organizations and furriers to get their sides of the debate. There are some pretty graphic descriptions in the book of preparing killed animals for food. Who prepares the meat you eat? There are other disfigured characters in literature and in real life: the Elephant Man, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Phantom of the Opera, the boy in "Mask." Compare their handling of the problem with that of Foxman. What would you do?

Related Books

Tree by Leaf by Cynthia Voigt Macmillan, 1988 ISBN 0-689-31403-5. Compare the Foxman to the father in Tree by Leaf. The father was also gassed and is hiding out in the boathouse rather than facing his family. Collected Stories by Richard Kennedy Harper, 1987 ISBN 0-06-023256-0. This book contains a story called "Oliver Hyde's Dishcloth Concert". In that story Oliver hides his face with a dishcloth, not because of a physical disfigurement, but because of an emotional one. Fireweed by Jill Paton Walsh Farrar, 1988 ISBN 0-374-42316-4 This novel deals with war more directly Keeper of the Doves by Betsy Byars Viking, 2002 ISBN 0670035769 Another novel which focuses on an outcast.

Other works by Gary Paulsen Read some of his other books (they're all good) and see if you can decide what his values are. Related Areas of Carol Hurst's Children's Literature Site

US History. Featured Subject with related books, activities and links. Farms in Children's Literature. Featured Subject with related books, activities and links. Work and Occupations. Featured Subject with related books, activities and links. Alida's Song by Gary Paulsen. Book Review. Call Me Francis Tucket by Gary Paulsen. Book Review. The Haymeadow by Gary Paulsen. Book Review. The Monument by Gary Paulsen. Book Review. Popcorn Days and Buttermilk Nights by Gary Paulsen. Book Review. The Winter Room by Gary Paulsen. Book Review. Woodsong by Gary Paulsen. Book Review.

After just barely graduating from high school in Thief River Falls, Minnesota, in 1959, Paulsen attended Bemidji College in Minnesota, for two years, paying for his tuition with money he'd earned as a trapper for the state of Minnesota. When he flunked out of college, he joined the U.S. Army, serving from 1959 to 1962, and working with missiles. After his tour of duty was completed, he took extension courses to become a certified field engineer, finding work in the aerospace departments of the Bendix and Lockheed corporations. There it occurred to him that he might try and become a writer. "I'd finished reading a magazine article on flight-testing . . . and thought, gad, what a way to make a living—writing about something you like and getting paid for it!" he told F. Serdahely in Writer's Digest. "I remembered writing some of my past reports, some fictionalized versions I'd included. And I thought: 'What the hell, I am an engineering writer.' But, conversely, I also realized I didn't know a thing about writing professionally. After several hours of hard thinking, a way to learn came to me. All I had to do was go to work editing a magazine."

Creating a fictitious resume, Paulsen was able to obtain an associate editor position on a men's magazine in Hollywood, California. Although it soon became apparent to his employers that he had no editorial experience, he once told SATA that "they could see I was serious about wanting to learn, and they were willing to teach me." He spent nearly a year with the magazine, finding it "the best of all possible ways to learn about writing. It probably did more to improve my craft and ability than any other single event in my life." Still living in California, Paulsen also found work as a film extra (he once played a drunken Indian in a movie called Flap), and took up sculpting as a hobby, even winning first prize in a local exhibition.

Paulsen's first book, The Special War, was published in 1966, and he soon proved himself to be one of the most prolific authors in the United States. In little over a decade, working mainly out of northern Minnesota—where he returned after becoming disillusioned with Hollywood—he published nearly forty books and close to two hundred articles and stories for magazines. Among Paulsen's diverse titles were a number of children's nonfiction books about animals, a biography of Martin Luther King, Jr., several humorous titles under the "Sports on the Light Side" series published by Raintree Press, two plays, adult fiction and nonfiction, as well as some initial ventures into juvenile fiction. On a bet with a friend, he once wrote eleven articles and short stories inside four days and sold all of them.H

Juvenile Fiction

Brian's Winter. New York: Delacorte, 1996. Call Me Frances Tucket. New York: Delacorte, 1995. Danger On Midnight River. New York: Doubleday, 1995. Escape From Fire Mountain. New York: Bantam Books, 1995. Hook 'em Snotty. New York: Doubleday, 1995. The Rifle. San Diego, CA: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1995. Rock Jockeys. New York: Bantam, 1995. The Tent. San Diego, CA: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1995. The Tortilla Factory. San Diego, CA: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1995. The Car. San Diego, CA: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1994. The Legend of Red Horse Cavern. New York: Bantam, 1994. Dogteam. New York: Delacorte, 1993. Harris and Me: A Summer Remembered. San Diego, CA: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1993.

The Winter Room. New York: Orchard, 1989. The Island. New York: Orchard, 1988. The Crossing. New York: Orchard, 1987. Hatchet. New York: Bradury Press, 1987. Sentries. New York: Bradbury Press, 1986. Dogsong, New York: Bradbury Press, 1985. Tracker. New York: Bradbury Press, 1984. Dancing Carl. New York: Bradbury Press, 1983. Popcorn Days and Buttermilk Nights. Lodestar Books, 1983. The Spitball Gang. Elsevier, 1980. The Green Recruit.Independence Press, 1978. The C. B. Radio Caper.Raintree, 1977. The Curse of the Cobra. Raintree, 1977. The Foxman. T. Nelson, 1977. The Golden Stick. Raintree, 1977. Tiltawhirl John.T. Nelson, 1977. Winterkill.T. Nelson, 1977. Mr. Tuckett. Funk & Wagnalls,1968. Culpepper Adventures Series. New York: Dell, from 1992 to present.

Nightjohn. New York: Delacorte, 1993. Sisters/Hermanas. San Diego, CA: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1993. Christmas Sonata. New York: Delacorte, 1992. The Haymeadow. New York: Delacorte, 1992. The Cookcamp. New York: Orchard, 1991. The Monument. New York: Delacorte, 1991. The River. New York: Delacorte, 1991. The Boy Who Owned the School. New York: Orchard, 1990. Canyons. New York: Delacorte, 1990. The Night the White Deer Died. New York: Delacorte, 1990. Woodsong. New York: Bradbury Press, 1990. The Voyage of the Frog. New York: Orchard, 1989.