Gary Paulsen

Soldier's Heart: Being the Story of the Enlistment and Due Service of the Boy Charley Goddard in the First Minnesota Volunteers is a historical war novella by Gary Paulsen aimed at the teenage market. It is a fictionalization of the true story of a Minnesotan farmboy, Charley Goddard, who at the age of 15 enlisted in …

For a 16-year-old boy out in the world alone for the first time, every day’s an education in the hard work and boredom of migrant labor; every day teaches him something more about friendship, or hunger, or profanity, or lust—always lust. He learns how a poker game, or hitching a ride, can turn deadly. He discovers the …