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ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSGary Paulsen spent most of his life outdoors, hunting and trapping in northern Minnesota, but he understood almost nothing about the natural world until a team of sled dogs changed everything. In his forties, broke and living off the land, Paulsen acquired four old dogs and a broken sled to help run a trapline, and what started as a practical arrangement turned into something he hadn't expected: a years-long education in the intelligence, loyalty, and humor of dogs, and through them, a new way of seeing the woods, its animals, and himself. Woodsong is Paulsen's memoir of that transformation, from his earliest lessons with a team of working dogs in the Minnesota wilderness to his first run of the Iditarod, the legendary 1,100-mile sled-dog race across Alaska.
Free Battle of the Books questions for Woodsong
SPOILERSEvery one of these has the same answer, and that is the point. In a real battle the question is read aloud with a dozen other books in play, and students have a few seconds to place it. Here is what a battle might ask about Woodsong. Use them as a quiz, a trivia round, or BOTB practice.
Where in the book they come from
- Early in the book
In what book does a man's kneecap tear loose on a snag before he slides over a frozen waterfall?
✓ Answer
Woodsong by Gary Paulsen
Paulsen rockets blindly into a small canyon when his dogs hit a steep drop. He catches his knee on a snag, then bounces over a twenty-foot frozen waterfall and lands on his torn kneecap on the ice below.
- First half
In what book does a man almost shoot a bear but lower the rifle thinking "Kill him for what?"
✓ Answer
Woodsong by Gary Paulsen
After the bear lets him live, Paulsen runs into the cabin and grabs his rifle to kill Scarhead. Just as he begins to squeeze the trigger, the question of why he would kill a bear that had just spared him stops him. He puts the gun away.
- First half
In what book does a dog named Fonzie end a ghost scare by peeing on a glowing stump?
✓ Answer
Woodsong by Gary Paulsen
After Paulsen approaches the strange green form he fears is a ghost and finds it is a phosphorus stump, Fonzie steps up, sniffs it, snorts, and pees on it. Paulsen quips 'so much for ghosts' as the eerie spell breaks completely.
- Second half
In what book does a whole sled team lie down for eighteen hours to punish the driver?
✓ Answer
Woodsong by Gary Paulsen
After the narrator yelled and grabbed Cookie and threw her off the trail in a storm, the team led him over a sharp drop. Once they had crashed, every dog quietly dug a bed in the snow and slept for eighteen hours, refusing to run for him.
- Second half
In what book does a sled dog growl at a heavy parlor stove loaded for a haul home?
✓ Answer
Woodsong by Gary Paulsen
Storm watched his owner load a heavy parlor stove with nickel trim into the sled, then turned, bared his teeth, and growled at the stove. He saw the stove as the enemy, the weight he would have to pull home.
- Near the end
In what book does a stranger offer a wolf for breeding by saying "She's in season"?
✓ Answer
Woodsong by Gary Paulsen
A plane lands beside the team in a ghost-town checkpoint and a man steps out with a hundred-pound muzzled female wolf in back. He casually mentions she has already killed three male dogs he tried to breed her to, and the narrator declines.
