DogSong

“You must leave with the dogs. Run long and find yourself.”

Russel Susskit used to be an average modern day Eskimo in the Alaskan winter camps. He went to school and had friends, but something wasn’t right; Russel felt empty and he longed to know why. That is when he decided to take a trip to the last true Eskimo left, Oogrut. People came from all over the village just to hear the wise words of Oogrut, and Russel felt he should go and talk to him too. That led him down a path that he could never return from. Russel moved in with Oogrut to learn the old ways, dropped out of school, and separated himself from the modern world. Once he had learned the ways of survival, he left, as Oogrut had told him to, and went to find his life song. In the book DogSong by Gary Paulsen, Russel faced life, death, hardship, and most importantly, who he was. Russel raced into the sunset a new person and he would never go back.
I would recommend this book to grades 6-8 and to anyone who takes interest in other books by Gary Paulsen. This Newbery Honor book is a perfect example of a boy in search of becoming a man.
“His legs are the earth and they take strength from it, up through his ankles and into his muscles so that he grows with what he takes from it.”