Gary Paulsen was born on May 17, 1939, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His father served in the military, and in 1946, Paulsen met his father for the first time when he and his mother joined him in the Philippines.

Paulsen remembers running wild at age seven, learning about street life firsthand.

Eventually, in 1949, he and his parents returned to America, moving frequently about the country as his father's postings were changed. He recalls being antisocial and a very poor student until he was a teenager.

He sold newspapers to patrons of bars and learned that if he gave them time to have a few drinks they would pay twentyfive cents instead of ten cents for a paper.

On a cold day while waiting for the right time to start selling his papers, he entered a library to get out of the cold. An elderly librarian asked whether he...