In Winterdance, Gary Paulsen who is famous for his many stories about the wilderness wrote about his own experience in the Iditarod. If you don’t know, the Iditarod is a 1,200 mile race across Alaska from Anchorage to Nome. I really enjoyed reading this book. It has memorable animals, many funny parts, and a few high adventure moments.
I really like books that are in first person because I can really understand everything that is going on in a character’s head and their perspective on everything. What I really admire in the book is how honest he is with himself with all the mistakes he made in the spur of the moment. In the first chapter he is really hard on himself, criticizing all the things he should have noticed, things he should have done, and the opportunities he missed out on. The fact that he was totally human, and was not doing everything perfectly helped me relate to his story although I have never and probably will never run sled dogs.
I was pleasantly surprised when the book didn’t jump right into the Iditarod. It started with Gary running his sled dogs on an overnight trip that went horribly wrong when he ignored the signs that a storm was coming. When he decided to run in the Iditarod, I especially liked how he explained all of the training and preparation. It allowed me to get connected to the dogs before the race and be able to understand and appreciate all the work that went into every dog on every team.
Throughout the book everything about the Iditarod is new to Paulsen and he doesn't know the terrain or the challenges he is going to face. I was just as surprised as he was when obstacles came up, which made the book suspenseful, and funny, at times.
If you’re like me and don’t appreciate hearing cuss words or reading them, then you should know that there aren't any in the first half of the book but they become more prevalent near the end. Surprisingly, there are still fewer than I expected for such an intense race.
Paulsen did a good job describing his love for his dogs. I could really understand the friendship he had with them. “How can it be to live without the dogs?” (256, Paulsen) sums up his feelings at the end quite nicely, and I felt the same way towards his dogs and was able to sympathize with him.
It was very satisfying from cover to cover and I would recommend it if you are looking for a captivating and humorous read.