Gary Paulsen

Dancing Carl Gary Paulsen

In the winter, life in McKinley, Minnesota, revolves around the rinks, where kids play hockey and grown-ups skate to scratchy phonograph records. Then, the year Marsh and his best friend, Willy, are twelve, Carl appears at the rink, wearing a battered, old leather flight jacket and doing a strange dance that is both beautiful and disturbing to watch. It is Marsh and Willy who discover the terrible secret behind Carl s dance, a secret that threatens to destroy him. But a small miracle occurs, and Carl s dance becomes a fragile and tentative expression of hope and the healing power of love. An ALA Best Book for Young Adults Filled with poetry and with life . . . an insightful, beautifully written story. Horn Book"