New Mexico author recalls boyhood in new book Beth Nieman “New Mexico author Gary Paulsen’s new book, “Gone to the Woods,” is the story in novel form of Paulsen’s own boyhood. He opens with a long journey north he undertakes alone as a boy of five. Wearing a tag pinned to his jacket in Chicago by his hard-drinking mother, he rides a train filled with war-wounded WW II soldiers heading home. His mother has sent him without food, but here and there someone shares something. He’s so small he gets stuck in the toilet, unable to get out until another passenger needs it and helps him. A...