Monthly Special
Survival Stories

Picture Books | Intermediate Fiction | Young Adult Fiction

The books recommended below were published within the last two years. Grade levels are only suggestions; the individual child is the real criterion.

Picture Books
Suggested grade level listed with each entry

Swift written and illustrated by Robert J. Blake (Philomel)
When a bear hunt goes awry, it's up to Johnnie and his dog Swift to make their way across the Alaskan landscape to fetch help for Johnnie's stricken father. Grade level: K–3. 48 pages.

Night of the Howling Dogs by Graham Salisbury (Lamb/Random)
Even-tempered narrator Dylan and "bad boy" Louie discover much about themselves as they help their fellow Boy Scouts survive a tsunami in Hawaii. 191 pages.

Peak by Roland Smith (Harcourt)
Natural-born climber Peak is pushed by his estranged father to be the youngest person ever to climb Mount Everest. 246 pages.

Blind Mountain by Jane Resh Thomas (Clarion)
While on a hike, Sam lets a pine bough snap back into his father's face, then must overcome the dangers of the mountain when his father is temporarily blinded. 117 pages.

Wilderness by Roddy Doyle (Levine/Scholastic)
Dubliners Johnny and Tom, vacationing in Finland, set off into the frozen wilderness on dogsleds to search for their missing mother. 211 pages.

The Winter Road by Terry Hokenson (Front Street)
After Willa crashes her Cessna in the Canadian bush, imagined conversations with her distant father and deceased brother provide her with the grit to continue. 175 pages.

The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean (HarperTempest)
Aided by imaginary conversations with the long-dead explorer Titus Oates, fourteen-year-old Sym survives a trip to Antarctica made perilous by her eccentric uncle’s machinations. 373 pp.

Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer (Harcourt)
Sixteen-year-old Miranda’s journal entries document the cataclysmic aftermath of an asteroid knocking the moon closer toward Earth. 337 pages.

The Trap by John Smelcer (Holt)
In the Alaskan Arctic, Albert Least-Weasel stumbles into his own wolf-trap while his grandson Johnny fights for honor in a community that has turned from tradition to nihilism. 170 pages.

More lists of Recommended Books