Read Alikes: Wilderness Survival Books
Title: Lions & Liars
By: Kate Beasley
Published: 2018
Fifth-grader Frederick is sent to a disciplinary camp where he and his terrifying troop mates have just started forging a friendship when they learn a Category 5 hurricane is headed their way.
J Beasl.K
Ages 8 - 12.
Title: Alone in the Woods
By: Rebecca Behrens
Published: 2020
Rising eighth-graders Jocelyn and Alex, former best friends forced together on a family vacation, must cooperate to survive when they get lost in the Wisconsin Northwoods.
J Behre.R
Ages 8 - 12.
Title: The Canyon's Edge
By: Dusti Bowling
Published: 2020
A year after the death of her mother in a restaurant shooting, Nora is left struggling to stay alive when a climbing trip with her father goes terribly wrong.
J Bowli.D
Ages 8 - 12.
Title: The Wild Robot
By: Peter Brown
Published: 2016
When robot Roz opens her eyes for the first time, she discovers that she is alone on a remote, wild island. Why is she there? Where did she come from? Most important, how will she survive in her harsh surroundings? Roz's only hope is to learn from the island's hostile animal inhabitants.
J Brown.P
Ages 8 - 12.
Title: Alone
By: Megan E. Freeman
Published: 2021
When twelve-year-old Maddie hatches a scheme for a secret sleepover with her two best friends, she ends up waking up to a nightmare. She's alone--left behind in a town that has been mysteriously evacuated and abandoned. With no one to rely on, no power, and no working phone lines or Internet access, Maddie slowly learns to survive on her own.
J Freem.M
Ages 10 and up.
Title: Refugee
By: Alan Gratz
Published: 2017
Although separated by continents and decades, Josef, a Jewish boy living in 1930s Nazi Germany; Isabel, a Cuban girl trying to escape the riots and unrest plaguing her country in 1994; and Mahmoud, a Syrian boy in 2015 whose homeland is torn apart by violence and destruction, embark on harrowing journeys in search of refuge, discovering shocking connections that tie their stories together.
J Gratz.A
Ages 9 - 12.
Title: The Trail
By: Meika Hashimoto
Published: 2017
Toby and his friend Lucas made a list of things to do the summer before they entered middle school, but now Lucas is gone, and Toby sets out to fulfill the promise he made to his friend, to finish the list by hiking the Appalachian Trail from Velvet Rocks to Mt. Katahdin, an undertaking that he is poorly prepared for--and which will become not only a struggle for survival, but a rescue mission for the starving and abused dog who he finds along the way.
J Hashi.M
Ages 8 - 12.
Title: Lifeboat 12
By: Susan Hood
Published: 2018
In 1940, a group of British children, their escorts, and some sailors struggle to survive in a lifeboat when the ship taking them to safety in Canada is torpedoed.
J Hood.S
Ages 8 - 12.
Title: Hello, Universe
By: Erin Entrada Kelly
Published: 2017
Virgil feels out of place in his crazy-about-sports family. Valencia is deaf, smart, and loves everything about nature. Kaori is a self-proclaimed psychic, whose little sister, Gen, is always following her around. And Chet wishes the weird kids would just stop being so different so that he can concentrate on basketball. They aren't friends. But when Chet pulls a prank that traps Virgil and his pet guinea pig at the bottom of a well, Kaori, Gen, and Valencia begin a quest to find the missing Virgil.
J Kelly.E
Ages 8 - 12.
Title: Shipwreck (Island, #1)
By: Gordon Korman
Published: 2001
Six kids, Luke, J.J., Will, Lyssa, Charla, and Ian, are thrown together against their will on a small boat that will make a one-month journey on the Pacific Ocean. These six totally different kids have to learn to work together to survive a vicious storm and a shipwreck that leave them stranded in the middle of the ocean with no food, no water, and almost no hope for survival.
J Korma.G
Ages 8 - 12.
Title: The Skeleton Tree
By: Iain Lawrence
Published: 2016
Less than forty-eight hours after twelve-year-old Chris sets off on a sailing trip down the Alaskan coast with his uncle, their boat sinks. The only survivors are Chris and a boy named Frank, who hates Chris immediately. Chris and Frank have no radio, no flares, no food. Suddenly, they've got to forage, fish, and scavenge the shore for supplies. Chris likes the company of a curious, friendly raven more than he likes the prickly Frank. But the boys have to get along if they want to survive. Because as the days get colder and the salmon migration ends, survival will take more than sheer force of will.
Downloadable eBook on Overdrive.
Ages 10 - 12.
Title: Brother's Keeper
By: Julie Lee
Published: 2020
Twelve-year-old Sora and her eight-year-old brother, Youngsoo, must try to escape North Korea's oppressive Communist regime on their own in 1950.
J Lee.J
Ages 8 - 12.
Title: Wildfire
By: Rodman Philbrick
Published: 2019
Thirteen-year-old Sam Castine is at summer camp while his mother is in rehab, but when the camp is evacuated ahead of a fast moving wildfire, he makes the mistake of going back for his phone, and finds himself left behind, disoriented, and running for his life, together with a girl, Delphy, from a different camp--finding an old jeep keeps them going, but in the wilds of Maine, there are only logging roads and the deadly crown fire is everywhere.
J Philb.W
Ages 8 - 12.
Title: Peak
By: Roland Smith
Published: 2008
A fourteen-year-old boy attempts to be the youngest person to reach the top of Mount Everest.
JPaperbk Smith.R
Ages 12+.