Adventure and Survival Books for Teens

Adventure and survival books take us out of ourselves and place us in a whole new reality. Reading about how others face challenges can open our eyes to new ways to deal with the challenges in our own lives.

Airborn by Kenneth Oppel

Alive: the Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read

Call It Courage by Armstrong Sperry

Deathwatch by Robb White

Downriver by Will Hobbs

Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing

Far North by Will Hobbs

The Goats by Brock Cole

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen

Holes by Louis Sachar

Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt

Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’dell

Incident at Hawk’s Hill by Allan W. Eckert

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

The Long Walk: the True Story of a Trek to Freedom by Slavomir Rawicz

My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George

The Perfect Storm: a True Story of Men Against the Sea by Sebastian Junger

The Perilous Journey of the Donner Party by Marian Calabro

Pirates! by Celia Rees

Revenge of the Whale: the True Story of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick

Shackleton’s Stowaway by Victoria Mckernan

Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World by Jennifer Armstrong

Skybreaker by Kenneth Oppel

Touching the Void: the Harrowing First-Person Account of One Man’s Miraculous Survival by Joe Simpson

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi

Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana, Jr.

The Wreckers by Iain Lawrence

Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean