Winterdance by Gary Paulsen was one of the overall the best book he has ever written. The beginning of the book started out pretty well with him losing his team while he is covered with mosquito bites and brush all over his body. This gave us a foreshadowing of what is to come with a little humor thrown into it. The way he sequenced the story line was magnificent. The book was full of humor even i laughed out loud a few times in just the first chapters of the book. Since the book is written about an addiction to the Iditarod race it showed the reason of it without saying it in the book. Gary Paulsen gets close to nature in the book and he also never like to be indoors. This is what i liked about it because it shows how all his thoughts grow and become stronger. Gary Paulsen explains different things very well, he makes things easier to understand. Most parts of this book had much humor. I did a big mistake reading the books during one of my classes because in the middle of a lesson i started laughing out loud. The Iditarod race did not only bring Gary Paulsen closer to nature but also myself. In one of the parts of the book it showed how his relationship with a wild wolf grew during the race and how him and the wolf would work together and live in harmony.the best part of the book was the fact that it was all true. All those experiences of gary are once in a lifetime that i probably would never get to experience. I have read many other Gary Paulsen books such as the hatchet series and the Tucket adventures series and all these books have to do with outdoors and just getting out there and experiencing new things and adventures that could only happen as often as once in a lifetime. This book has you keep one foot in reality while the other is in a world of imagination that nobody would ever think possible. This is my favorite book because Gary Paulsen showed many relationships being built with his dogs and with nature. I don't think the book was focused on the race at all but everything that happened in between. Even Gary Paulsen himself said that during his experience he forgot he was even in a race because he was focused on other things happening during the time.