Gary Paulsen, How to Train Your Dad

Bookshop Santa Cruz is delighted to welcome acclaimed and bestselling author Gary Paulsen for a virtual event celebrating his new middle grade novel, How to Train Your Dad.

Register for this free Crowdcast event by clicking here!
The featured book will be published on October 5th and is available for preorder below.

From the legendary author of Hatchet, a laugh-out-loud eco-friendly adventure about a boy, his free-thinking dad, and the puppy-training pamphlet that turns their summer upside down.

Twelve-year-old Carl is fed up with his father’s single-minded pursuit of an off-the-grid existence. His dad may be brilliant, but dumpster-diving for food, scouring through trash for salvageable junk, and wearing clothes fully sourced from garage sales is getting old. Increasingly worried about what schoolmates and a certain girl at his new school might think of his circumstances–and encouraged by his off-kilter best friend–Carl adopts the principles set forth in a randomly discovered puppy-training pamphlet to “retrain” his dad’s mindset . . . a crackpot experiment that produces some very unintentional results.

This is a fierce and funny novel about family, green-living, and untangling some of the ties that bind from middle-grade master Gary Paulsen.

Gary Paulsen is the winner of the ALA Margaret Edwards Award for his contribution to young adult literature, and is a three-time Newbery Honor winner, for Hatchet, Dogsong, and The Winter Room. His books have sold more than 35 million copies. He lives in New Mexico.