Virtually every novel by Paulsen treats the topic of an adolescent coming of age. The protagonists invariably and successfully survive. Some stories end happily; others stop before a resolution is accomplished but with a sense that the worst is over. What varies significantly is the situation in which the central character works out his or her destiny, permanently altering his or her perception and understanding. In general, Paulsen presents two types of situations.

One situation presents a protagonist whose secure, unsuspecting world is disrupted. Just as Wil's universe teeters with the family's move to Pinewood, other main characters have to deal with unexpected change. In The Monument, the quiet life of the thirteen-year-old heroine suffers upheaval when a middle-aged, iconoclastic artist comes to town and shatters many of the grownups' illusions and assumptions. In Dancing Carl the twelve-year-old hero meets the town's most famous, unusual alcoholic...