From Publishers Weekly
"Descriptions of light and water, of fish and wildlife, kindle in the reader a measure of the author's own complex respect for nature," said PW in a starred review. All ages. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From School Library Journal
Grade 7 Up-Paulsen begins this collection of compelling memoirs with a forword that reflects on the genesis of his novel Hatchet (Macmillan, 1987). He concludes by poignantly expressing doubts about the moral correctness of hunting. In between, he pares away the layers of his life, revealing a lost kid who sought sanctuary in friends and the outdoors. In half of the selections, he relates the joys of fishing. There's one essay on camping as comic disaster during high summer; the rest are about hunting. All are intensely personal and steeped in a bygone time of hand-set pins in a bowling alley, lack of equal rights for African Americans, corporal punishment, dress codes, and ducktail haircuts. Readers of the author's earlier works will hear echoes as old as Winterkill (Elsevier-Nelson, 1976; o.p.) in Paulsen's description of snagging fish by the hydropower dam. The metaphor of life as a dance; his characteristic good humor; and the frequent references to blood, madness, prostitution, farts, and beer will strike a familiar chord, as will the seasonal structure through which the essays cycle. The pieces are rooted in the details of a youth spent in search of perfection: the perfect cast, perfect catch, perfect shot. Equally on target are descriptions of the pain of feeling the outsider, of being a failure at school, and of being ashamed of his parents' drunkenness. This book will appeal to Paulsen's many fans, to lovers of the outdoors, and to students of the essay.Joel Shoemaker, Southeast Jr. High School, Iowa City, IACopyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Gr. 6 and up. In his introduction, Paulsen confesses that numerous inquiries about the germination of Hatchet (1987) became the seed of this book. Yet, as you read the graphic descriptions of hunting, camping, fishing, and the natural life of Paulsen's childhood in general, you realize that this seed has been in all of Paulsen's books, in all of Paulsen's life. The woods, the water, are the nurturing forces behind the man he has become. The most obvious correlation is the erstwhile boyhood summer camping trip, a fiasco in which five boys board one rickety boat with almost enough food and gear to swamp it. Far down the river, the boat hits a submerged log, sinking immediately, and the boys are left struggling for shore. Once on land, they are engulfed in mosquitoes and indecision. How do they get home? But all sections are vintage Paulsenthe seasonal fishing trips, each portion of the year highlighted by a different fish, from sucker and bull to rock bass and walleye; the low-key humor of the incidents of the missed shot and the South American foreign exchange student; and the sensitive grief over the killed duck and bow-and-arrow-slain doe. This book is obviously a feast for the outdoor loverthe hunter, fisher, or camperbut it will also draw those who love the beauty of the carefully crafted description, so detailed and vivid that the reader can feel the warming of spring days and taste the bullhead skin crackling and tasting of butter. Above all, Father Water, Mother Woods is the essence of Paulsen, the revelation of the author himself and why he writes as he does. Frances Bradburn


From Kirkus Reviews
Like the adolescent boys that are their target audience, these reminiscences of boyhood hunting and fishing are awkward and intense. Paulsen (Harris and Me: A Summer Remembered, 1993, etc.) portrays the Minnesota rivers and forests where he and his friends sought adventure in the late 1940s as more than sites to snag fish or bag grouse: They were settings in which the boys both escaped and confronted life. Paulsen, the neglected son of alcoholic parents, identifies himself as ``one of the wasted ones.'' Showing how he and his companions sought salvation in the wilderness, ``where our lives didn't hurt,'' Paulsen's most powerful moment comes in an essay about shooting his first deer: ``He wasn't sure what he expected if he actually hit a deer....When he missed he swore and made up an excuse....But he had no excuse for hitting a deer. And he wanted one badly.'' This is the same sense of shock and of the dreadful burden of freedom in the wild that we encounter reading Frost or Twain, and it's exquisite. Otherwise this book lurches between rambling recollection and vivid re-creation of the past and is often marred by stiff writing and passive constructions. Like much of the hunting it describes, this book has one hit among numerous misses. (Nonfiction. 12+) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Survival in the wilderness—Gary Paulsen writes about it so powerfully in his novels Hatchet and The River because he's lived it. These essays recount his adventures alone and with friends, along the rivers and in the woods of northern Minnesota. There, fishing and hunting are serious business, requiring skill, secrets, and inspiration. Luck, too—not every big one gets away.

This book takes readers through the seasons, from the incredible taste of a spring fish fresh from the smokehouse, to the first sight of the first deer, to the peace of the winter days spent dreaming by the stove in a fishhouse on the ice. In Paulsen's north country, every expedition is a major one, and often hilarious.


Once again Gary Paulsen demonstrates why he is one of America's most beloved writers, for he shows us fishing and hunting as pleasure, as art, as companionship, and as sources of life's deepest lessons.

FROM THE CRITICS

The ALAN Review - Donald R. Gallo