Woods Runner

Woods Runner is a historical novel for young readers by Gary Paulsen, published in 2010. Its central character, Samuel, is thirteen and supports his family by hunting in the forest.

He has grown up on the frontier of a British colony, far from any town and far from the news of the war against the King that has begun near Boston. What he knows is the woods, and his knowledge of them is what the book turns out to depend on.

The war comes to the family anyway. British soldiers and Iroquois attack, and Samuel's parents are taken away as prisoners, which leaves him following them while hiding and moving as silently as he can. Nobody has told him where his parents have been taken.

What he finds along the way are allies: men and women working secretly for the patriot cause. The rescue takes him deeper into enemy territory than he has ever been, and the novel is about a boy whose only skill proves worth more than a rifle.