Book Reviews
Thhre are only a handful of indispensable dog books.... Winterdance belongs among [those] classics.... It's hard to find a page in this laconic book without an insight, hard to find a word that could be cut without loss.... Winterdance is beautiful and it is very funny and it is about men and dogs and their souls.
Donald McCaig - Washington Post
Winterdance will be around long after most outdoor adventure book shave been forgotten. What could have been an ordinry journal becomes instead a revelation.
Minneapolis/St. Paul Star-Tribune
A breathtaking, heart stopping, roller-coaster ride that depicts the brutal reality of the Iditarod, the magnificent beauty of Alaska, and the unique, if not surreal, relationship that develops between man and dog.
Nevada Weekly
Paulsen's survival adventure is in the tradition of Jack London: one man and his dog team together against the Arctic wilderness. With everything stripped down to the barest essentials, Paulsen finds elemental connection with a world beyond cities, family, and work. His prose is spare and physical; at its best, it has the fluid simplicity of Hemingway.
Hazel Rochman - Booklist
The Alaskan Iditarod is an annual 1180-mile dogsled race from Anchorage to Nome that generally takes two to three weeks to complete. Paulsen, a popular YA writer, ran the race in 1983 and 1985 and was again in training when a heart condition forced him to retire. This book is primarily an account of Paulsen's first Iditarod and its frequent life-threatening disasters, including wind so strong it blew his eyelids open and blinded his eyes with snow, cold so deep matches would not strike, and packages of lotions kept next to his skin that froze solid. However, the book is more than a tabulation of tribulations; it is a meditation on the extraordinary attraction this race holds for some men and women. In a style reminiscent of fellow nature writer Farley Mowat, Paulsen deftly examines careening on a precarious edge. Highly recommended for all libraries. — John Maxymuk, Rutgers Univ. Lib., Camden, NJ
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