40 Fun Facts About Woodsrunner

In Woods Runner, a British officer spares Samuel's father because he wants a partner for which game?

Chess saves the family: an officer in the raiding party finds a board in the cabin and takes the couple along as prisoners because he misses having an opponent.

Which soldiers fighting for Britain kill Annie Clark's parents in Woods Runner?

Hessians were hired German troops, named for Hesse-Kassel and Hesse-Hanau, the states that sent most of them. At least 30,000 fought in the war, about a quarter of Britain's land forces.

Which weapon strikes Samuel in the head when rebels attack the redcoat camp holding his parents in Woods Runner?

A tomahawk blow leaves Samuel senseless for days, and he wakes to learn that the rebels have carried him twelve miles from the fight.

When redcoats near his wagon in Woods Runner, what does old Abner tell Samuel and Annie to pretend to be?

His grandchildren is the story Abner gives, and the patrol passes them by. The old man turns out to have plenty of practice at fooling soldiers.

In Woods Runner, Samuel learns his captured parents are being taken to the British headquarters in which city?

New York stayed in British hands until 1783, so reaching his parents means walking straight into the enemy's strongest base.

What is Samuel about to steal from a farm when he first meets Annie Clark in Woods Runner?

A chicken is his target until Annie offers him one herself, choosing a bird she calls mean. Her parents then lay out a feast for the stranger.

In Woods Runner, warriors of which Native American people join the British raid on Samuel's settlement?

Iroquois unity broke over the Revolution: four of the six nations sided with Britain, while the other two fought beside the patriots.

Woods Runner author Gary Paulsen is best known for which survival novel about a boy stranded by a plane crash?

Hatchet leaves 13-year-old Brian Robeson alone in the Canadian wilderness with a single tool, and Paulsen went on to write four more books about him.

What do Samuel's parents open at the end of Woods Runner to take in children orphaned by the war?

A school fits the couple, who were always more at home with their books than with the forest around their cabin.

What does 13-year-old Samuel supply to most of the families in his Pennsylvania settlement in Woods Runner?

Fresh meat from Samuel's hunting feeds the settlement, because his parents came to the frontier from the cities and have little skill at tracking game.

After the rescue in Woods Runner, Samuel leads his family on a dangerous trek to settle in which city?

Philadelphia is where Samuel earlier offered to leave Annie for safety, when a signpost put it 41 miles to the south, but she refused to be parted from him.

In Woods Runner, Samuel's starving father is locked up with dozens of other men in what kind of building?

A sugar mill holds him, as in real life: the British turned three of the city's sugar houses into makeshift jails for captured Americans.

Abner McDougal, the old patriot spy of Woods Runner, travels the roads posing as which kind of craftsman?

Tinker was a handy cover: these travelling menders of pots and pans went from farm to farm, so nobody questioned an old man with a wagon of odds and ends.

What does Gary Paulsen place between the chapters of Samuel's story throughout Woods Runner?

Short history notes follow the chapters, on subjects such as spy networks, weapons and war orphans, so readers see the real events behind Samuel's journey.

What does Annie Clark become to Samuel by the end of Woods Runner?

His adopted sister is how Samuel comes to see Annie on the road, and his parents accept her as their daughter the moment he tells them about her.

The Pennsylvania long rifle of Samuel's frontier world in Woods Runner is better known by the name of which state?

Kentucky rifle is the nickname that stuck, taken from a popular song about Andrew Jackson's victory at the Battle of New Orleans, decades after the Revolution.

The war that reaches Samuel in Woods Runner began near Boston in 1775 at Lexington and which other town?

Concord was the target of the British march, which set out to destroy militia supplies stored there and ended as a running fight all the way back to Boston.

Before writing Woods Runner, Gary Paulsen drove a dog team across Alaska in which famous long-distance race?

The Iditarod took Paulsen more than 17 days in 1983, when he finished 41st of 54 mushers on the 1,150-mile trail.

Which young rebel, on his way to join the American forces, nurses the wounded Samuel in Woods Runner?

Coop, whose full name is John Cooper, feeds Samuel back to strength, and their friendship is a large part of why Samuel later returns to help the rebels.

Which British king were American patriots fighting in 1776, when Samuel's settlement is raided in Woods Runner?

George III reigned from 1760 until his death in 1820, so he stayed on the throne for decades after losing the American colonies.

After freeing his parents in Woods Runner, Samuel crosses the river by boat to the safety of which colony?

New Jersey is where Annie is waiting on the far bank, and Samuel's parents embrace her as their daughter as soon as they land.

In the rescue plan of Woods Runner, what does Samuel use to knock out the guard at his father's prison?

A brick does the job while the guard is distracted by a bundle that Samuel and Abner claim is food for a prisoner.

In the opening chapter of Woods Runner, which animal does Samuel take aim at but decide not to shoot?

A deer wanders up to him and he lets it go, his mind on the stranger who reached the settlement the night before with news of a war.

What do Samuel's parents do together every night in their frontier cabin in Woods Runner?

Read aloud to each other is what they do, and the books and stories of the couple are how Samuel pictures the towns far to the east.

In Woods Runner, what does the old spy Abner use to send a message some forty miles ahead of his wagon?

A carrier pigeon covers the distance in about an hour, and Abner marvels at the thought of anything travelling through the air that fast.

What nickname did redcoats, like those who raid Samuel's settlement in Woods Runner, give their musket?

Brown Bess was the standard British service musket from 1722 until 1836, more than a century, and American revolutionaries used it as well.

Which document, issued in 1776 as Woods Runner begins, condemns the king for hiring foreign mercenaries?

The Declaration of Independence lists 27 grievances against the king, and the 25th attacks his use of hired foreign troops like those who terrorise farms in Woods Runner.

Kirkus paired Woods Runner with Gary Paulsen's earlier novel Soldier's Heart, set during which war?

The Civil War is seen through Charley Goddard, a real farm boy who lied about his age to enlist at 15 and came home haunted by what he had seen.

What do the rebels who rescued Samuel feed him first as he recovers from his head wound in Woods Runner?

Broth comes first, then more solid food once he can manage it; by then the group has spent six or seven days covering just twelve miles.

What has Samuel made for his weakened father to wear on the forest escape in Woods Runner?

A pair of moccasins lets his father move quietly through the forest; Samuel counts himself lucky when his own last a month on the trail.

What are the first names of Samuel's parents, the couple taken prisoner in the raid in Woods Runner?

Olin and Abigail are gentle people who love books far more than the forest, which is why their 13-year-old son does the family's hunting.

Which real American unit does Samuel join when he returns to the war in Woods Runner?

Morgan's Rifles were a real corps of frontier marksmen, though Samuel hunts, mends equipment and tends the sick and wounded rather than fire on anyone.

Which crop, roasted where it grew in a burned field, does the starving Samuel devour in Woods Runner?

Corn scorched on the stalk gets eaten on the spot, and Samuel is so hungry that chewing it makes his jaws ache.

Woods Runner's title echoes the coureurs des bois, 'runners of the woods' in New France who dealt in which goods?

Furs, above all beaver, were what these independent French Canadian traders collected from First Nations partners in exchange for European goods.

Which American Library Association honour for a lifetime of writing for teens did Woods Runner's Gary Paulsen win?

The Margaret A. Edwards Award went to Paulsen in 1997; the Newbery Medal itself always escaped him, though three of his books were runners-up.

Which Gary Paulsen novel about a boy crossing the Arctic by sled, written before Woods Runner, won a Newbery Honor?

Dogsong follows Russel Susskit, who takes a team across ice floes and tundra to escape the snowmobiles and modern ways of his village.

Which firing mechanism was standard on the muskets and hunting guns of 1776, the year Woods Runner is set?

Flintlock guns stayed in common use for more than two centuries, until the percussion cap replaced them in the 1800s.

What gave the frontier long rifle of Woods Runner's era far better accuracy than a redcoat's smoothbore musket?

Spiral barrel grooves, known as rifling, spin the ball so that it flies true; the price was slower reloading, because the ball had to fit tightly.

In which northern state did Woods Runner's author Gary Paulsen grow up, hunting with a bow as a boy?

Minnesota is where the young Paulsen fended for himself between twelve and fourteen, setting pins at a bowling alley, delivering newspapers and hunting for his food.

Before writing Woods Runner and his other novels, Gary Paulsen worked with missiles as a sergeant in which service?

The Army kept Paulsen from 1959 to 1962 and posted him to the desert Southwest, a region where he later chose to settle.