Books You Might Like: 

 

Adventure & Survival - Fiction

 

 

The dark ground by Gillian Cross.

Robert wakes up scratched and naked in a dark forest, remembering only that he had been on an airplane returning from vacation with his parents, and soon realizes he is not far from home, but that he has somehow become very small--shorter than a blade of grass--and the distance to his house seems impossible to travel.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level - 5.3

 

Area 7 by Matthew Reilly.

The President of the United States travels to the remote Utah desert to inspect the secret base known as Area 7, but he gets more than he bargained for when he learns hostile forces have taken over the base.

 

The stolen lake by Joan Aiken.

On her way to England from Nantucket aboard a British man-o'-war, Dido has many adventures when the ship is diverted to the land of New Cumbria in the southern hemisphere.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level - 7.4

           

The last of the Mohicans : a narrative of 1757 by James        Fenimore  

A Mohican brave struggles to protect two English girls from an evil Huron during the French and Indian War.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level 10.3

      

Sharpe's battle : Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Fuentes de O–oro, May 1811 by Bernard Cornwell.

British captain Richard Sharpe must lead untrained, unequipped ceremonial troops in a fight to the death when his old foe, French Brigadier General Guy Loup, attacks him while he heads a battalion of the king of Spain's household guard.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level - 7.4

 

Sharpe's devil : Richard Sharpe and the Emperor, 1820-1821 by Bernard Cornwell.

Lieutenant Colonel Richard Sharpe comes out of retirement to find his friend Don Blas Vivar, Captain-General of the Spanish colony of Chile.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level - 7.4

 

The lost world by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Professor Challenger tracks down dinosaurs in the South American jungle.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level 7.8

 

The adventures of Blue Avenger : a novel  by Norma

Howe.

On his sixteenth birthday, still trying to cope with the unexpected death of his father, David Schumacher decides--or does he--to change his name to Blue Avenger, hoping to find a way to make a difference in his Oakland neighborhood and in the world.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level - 6.2

 

Blue Avenger cracks the code by Norma Howe.

In his new identity as Blue Avenger, sixteen-year-old David visits Venice, Italy, and continues to pursue various crusades, including trying to solve the mystery of who really wrote Shakespeare's works.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level - 6.1

 

Down the Yukon  by Will Hobbs.

In the wake of Dawson City's Great Fire of 1899, sixteen-year-old Jason and his girlfriend Jamie canoe the Yukon River across Alaska in an epic race from Canada's Klondike to the new gold fields at Cape Nome.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level - 5.4

 

Leaving Protection by Will Hobbs.

Sixteen-year-old Robbie Daniels, happy to get a job aboard a troller fishing for king salmon off southeastern Alaska, finds himself in danger when he discovers that his mysterious captain is searching for long-buried Russian plaques that lay claim to Alaska and the Northwest.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level - 5.2

 

Wild Man Island by Will Hobbs.

After fourteen-year-old Andy slips away from his kayaking group to visit the wilderness site of his archaeologist father's death, a storm strands him on Admiralty Island, Alaska, where he manages to survive, encounters unexpected animal and human inhabitants, and looks for traces of the earliest prehistoric immigrants to America.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level - 5.1

 

The wreckers  by Iain Lawrence.

Shipwrecked after a vicious storm, fourteen-year-old John Spencer attempts to save his father and himself while also dealing with an evil secret about the Cornish coastal town where they are stranded.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level 4.2

 

Life of Pi : a novel  by Yann Martel.

Pi Patel, having spent an idyllic childhood in Pondicherry, India, as the son of a zookeeper, sets off with his family at the age of sixteen to start anew in Canada, but his life takes a marvelous turn when their ship sinks in the Pacific, leaving him adrift on a raft with a 450-pound Bengal tiger for company.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level - 5.7

 

All the pretty horses by Cormac McCarthy.

The story of young John Grady Cole, the last of a long line of Texas ranchers, who, along with two companions, sets off on an idyllic, sometimes comic adventure, to a place where dreams are paid for in blood.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level - 4.9

      

Moby Dick, or, The white whale by Herman Melville  Captain Ahab's determination to find and kill the great white whale becomes an obsession driving him to disaster.

Accelerated Reader--Level 10.3

      

The voyage of the Frog by Gary Paulsen.

When David goes out on his sailboat to scatter his recently deceased uncle's ashes to the wind, he is caught in a fierce storm and must survive many days on his own as he works out his feelings about life and his uncle.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level 6.0

 

The Transall saga by Gary Paulsen.

While backpacking in the desert, thirteen-year-old Mark falls into a tube of blue light and is transported into a more primitive world, where he must use his knowledge and skills to survive.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level - 4.3

 

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen.

After a plane crash, thirteen-year-old Brian spends fifty-four days in the wilderness, learning to survive with only the aid of a hatchet given him by his mother, and learning also to survive his parents' divorce.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level - 5.7

 

Brian's winter by Gary Paulsen.

Instead of being rescued from a plane crash, as in the author's book Hatchet, this story portrays what would have happened to Brian had he been forced to survive a winter in the wilderness with only his survival pack and hatchet.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level - 5.9

 

Brian's hunt by Gary Paulsen.

Two years after having survived a plane crash into the Canadian wilderness, a sixteen-year-old returns to the wild to befriend a wounded dog and hunt a rogue bear.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level - 5.9

 

Pilot down, presumed dead by Marjorie Phleger.

A young pilot who crash lands on an island off Baja California uses his ingenuity to survive.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level 7.0

      

The iceberg hermit by Arthur Roth.

Shipwrecked in 1757 on an iceberg in the Arctic seas with only an orphaned polar cub for companionship, seventeen-year-old Allan begins a seemingly hopeless struggle for survival.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level 6.2

 

A journey to the center of the earth by Jules Verne.

Three men dare to adventure into a subterranean world full of danger and beauty. They discover many unusual things on their trip to the Earth's mysterious core.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level - 9.9

 

Blue fingers : a ninja's tale by Cheryl Aylward Whitesel.

Having failed apprenticeship as a dye maker, Koji is captured and forced to train as a ninja, where he remains disloyal until he discovers samurai have burned his former village.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level - 5.2

 

 

Adventure & Survival - Nonfiction

 

The terrible hours : the man behind the greatest submarine rescue in history by Peter Maas.

Offers a detailed account of U.S. Navy officer Charles "Swede" Momsen's attempts to save thirty-three men who were trapped in a sunken submarine during the first days of World War II.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level - 8.6

 

In harm's way : the sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the extraordinary story of its survivors by Doug

Stanton.

Tells the story of the "USS Indianapolis," a battle cruiser torpedoed in the South Pacific by a Japanese submarine on July 30, 1945, shortly after delivering parts of the atom bomb that would be dropped on Hiroshima; and discusses the heroic struggles of sailors who survived the blast to stay alive in the sea for nearly five days before help arrived.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level - 8.3

 

Black Hawk down : a story of modern war by Mark

Bowden.

Chronicles the experiences of ninety-nine American soldiers who were trapped in the city of Mogadishu, Somalia in 1993.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level - 7.3

 

Into the wild by Jon Krakauer.

Tells the story of Chris McCandless, a twenty-four-year-old who walked into the Alaskan wilderness on an idealistic journey and was found dead of starvation four months later. Attempts to discover what led the young man to that point.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level - 8.1

 

The perfect storm : a true story of men against the sea by Sebastian Junger.

Uses interviews, memoirs, radio conversations, and technical research to recreate the last days of the crew of  the Andrea Gail, a fishing boat that was lost in a storm off the coast of Nova Scotia in October 1991.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level 7.4

 

In the heart of the sea : the tragedy of the whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick.

Tells the story of the Essex, a whaleship that set sail from Nantucket in 1819 on a routine voyage, and was rammed and sunk by an enraged sperm whale in the South Pacific, setting the twenty-man crew adrift in three tiny boats.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level - 8.8

 

Alive by Piers Paul Read.

Discusses the ordeal of the survivors of an airplane crash in 1972 in the Andes wilderness.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level - 7.7

 

The heart of the Antarctic : the farthest south expedition, 1907-1909 by Sir Ernest Shackleton.

Shackleton's own thrilling account of his first Antarctic expedition and the race to reach the South Pole.

 

Winterdance : the fine madness of running the Iditarod

 by Gary Paulsen.

The author's account of his most ambitious quest, to know a world beyond his knowing, to train for and run the Iditarod.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level - 6.0

 

Escapes! by Laura Scandiffio 

A collection of ten true escape stories from around the world and across the ages, including:  Breakout from the Bastille -- "From here there is no escape--" -- Though Traitor's Gate -- Fugitives in Iran -- Falling from the sky -- Under siege -- The Gladiator War -- Over the Wall -- Slaves of the Sahara -- Tickets to freedom.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level - 6.4

 

True escape and survival stories by Gurney Williams III   

Presents accounts of seven instances of escape and survival in addition to offering tips for surviving in the desert, forest, jungle, and mountains.

 

Two years before the mast : a personal narrative  by            Richard Henry Dana, Jr. 

Recounts the joys and hardships of a sailor's life in a daily journal written on a journey around Cape Horn to California between 1834 and 1836 aboard the brig Pilgrim.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level 7.7

 

Abandon ship!  by  Hal Butler

Captures the glory that is the sea and chronicles seventeen of the most tragic and unusual ship disasters in maritime history.

 

Magellan and the first voyage around the world  by

Nancy Smiler Levinson.

Magellan is universally recognized as a master navigator and a scientific explorer of great courage and daring.  His amazing journey, a triumph of the human spirit, is recounted here in vivid and exciting detail.

 

Guts : the true stories behind Hatchet and the Brian books by Gary Paulsen.

The author relates incidents in his life and how they inspired parts of his books about the character, Brian Robeson.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level - 6.5

 

Zero to sixty : the motorcycle journey of a lifetime by

Gary Paulsen

An autobiography in which the author reflects upon his life and tells about the experiences he had and insights he gained while taking a five-thousand-mile road trip on a Harley-Davidson, from New Mexico to Alaska.

 

Caught by the sea : my life on boats by Gary Paulsen.

A memoir in which author Gary Paulsen discusses his lifelong love for the sea and shares his adventures exploring the oceans.

Accelerated Reader Reading Level - 6.3