Upsetting, graphic description in the first chapter of wolves taking down a deer. As he explains, it is not a clean kill.

It is classified as juvenile literature but I would not want children reading this. Which is too bad.

Paulsen writes movingly of his learning to run dogs and training pups for the harness. There are eye-rolling episodes where his ignorance in managing dog sledding had me cringing. Equally, there were laugh-out-loud anecdotes (I especially enjoyed the bantam hen dominating the Paulsen family backyard). The evocative passages of winter beauty and wilderness camping added to my appreciation of Paulsen's writing.

I'm not sure who the target audience really is for this book. It's a memoir of the author's early days running dogs, which could certainly appeal to outdoors-oriented readers of any age. But there are also passages of the harsh realities of wolves and deer populations and a squirrel-chipmunk interaction both of which are very graphic. Of course, the younger end of the YA readership might just gloss over these descriptions.

The final chapter of running his first Iditarod was captivating, even though I'd previously read Winterdance. I always come away from reading stories of this famous Alaskan race with amazement at what people will do as an extreme sport and wondering how on earth more dogs and drivers don't die trying to complete this run. In the Woodsong version, the tale of Pualsen's first Iditarod is shortened but still paints an astounding chronicle of the race. ( )

... ( )

Exhilarating NF about wilderness, endurance and…dogs. Bittersweet with some gross-out humor. Fascinating. Paulsen has won awards for his teen fiction. With Woodsong he tries his hand at NF. The book is filled with lovely (and sometimes terrifying) glimpses into his life living on the edge of wilderness in Minnesota running his dogs. It finishes with an accounting of his first Iditerod. ( )

I would use this book as a mentor text with 5th grade students because of how high quality the book is and how talented the author is. This book is a fantastic example of a memoir and it uses a lot of descriptive writing, so this book would be great to use for the kids for them to use to model descriptive and narrative writing skills, then to write their own. I would also use this book as an independent read with the same grade students to use in group reading circles that would lead to exploring more information about the Idiatrod, the climate of Alaska, and the dogs that are used to sled to get practical content in the lesson while they would still be using the text for literary and reading skills, but they would be able to have a pertinent and interesting aside with the lesson.