This Side of Wild Read online

  2. If an earthworm is placed in a glass tube with two forks and in one of the forks a wire with a tiny bit of electricity is placed so that if the worm goes up that fork and hits the electricity it will feel mild discomfort, then that worm will always go up the other fork. While they have small ganglia, earthworms have no real brain and probably no forms of communication other than chemical slime and so probably no real memory. If placed with another worm who has never been in the glass tube and then separated and the new worm is let go in a glass with two forks, the new worm will always take the “safe” fork, as if he’d been told. How can this be?

  3. It is said that the weight of all the ants on the planet far exceeds the weight of all humans on the planet and that in organization and numbers ants far exceed humans. They will, for instance, kidnap eggs from other ant mounds, hatch them out, raise them, and use them as slaves—a level it was thought only humans had sunk to. Does all this not make ants the largest and most successful species on the planet?

  GARY PAULSEN is one of the most honored writers of contemporary literature for young readers, and the author of three Newbery Honor titles: Dogsong, Hatchet, and The Winter Room. He has written more than two hundred books for adults and young readers. He divides his time between New Mexico, Alaska, and on the Pacific.

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  ALSO BY GARY PAULSEN

  Dancing Carl

  Dogsong

  Hatchet

  Sentries

  Shelf Life: Stories by the Book

  Tracker

  Woodsong

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  Text copyright © 2015 by Gary Paulsen

  Illustrations copyright © 2015 by Tim Jessell

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

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  Book design by Krista Vossen

  The text for this book is set in Fournier.

  The illustrations for this book are rendered in pen and ink.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Paulsen, Gary.

  This side of wild : mutts, mares, and laughing dinosaurs / Gary Paulsen.—First edition.

  pages ; cm

  Summary: “The Newbery Honor–winning author of Hatchet and Dogsong shares surprising true stories about his relationship with animals, highlighting their compassion, intellect, intuition, and sense of adventure. Gary Paulsen is an adventurer who competed in two Iditarods, survived the Minnesota wilderness, and climbed the Bighorn Mountains. None of this would have been possible without his truest companion: his animals. Sled dogs rescued him in Alaska, a sickened poodle guarded his well-being, and a horse led him across a desert. Through his interactions with dogs, horses, birds, and more, Gary has been struck with the belief that animals know more than we may fathom. His understanding and admiration of animals is well known, and in This Side of Wild, which has taken a lifetime to write, he proves the ways in which they have taught him to be a better person”—Provided by publisher.

  ISBN 978-1-4814-5150-5 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-4814-5152-9 (eBook)

  1. Paulsen, Gary—Juvenile literature. 2. Authors, American—20th century—Biography—Juvenile literature. 3. Human-animal relationships—Juvenile literature. I. Title.

  PS3566.A834Z46 2015

  813’.54—dc23

  [B]

  2015004132