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Life on the Line
Adventure books
for teens
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Guts:
The True Stories Behind Hatchet and the Brian Books
Guts is real stories that inspired Brian's adventure: Paulsen's
work as an EMS volunteer; the death that inspired the pilot's death in Hatchet;
plane crashes he has seen and near-misses of his own. The chapter "Eating
Eyeballs and Guts or Starving: The Fine Art of Wilderness Nutrition" will
leave you wondering how Paulsen survived to write all of his books - well, it
took guts.
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In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked
to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness. He had given $25,000 in savings
away, abandoned his car and his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet,
and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, a hunter found his decomposed
body. In Into the Wild, Krakauer tries to discover what happened.
Andy
slips away from his kayaking group in Alaska to visit the site of his father's
death. Stranded on Admirality Island, he struggles with forests, rain, and bears.
As he begins to lose hope of rescue, he encounters a dog running with wolves,
and later, a man dressed in cedar-bark clothing, carrying a stone-tipped spear.
What's at stake are the discoveries Andy's father died trying to find …
At 13, Mikey is
the youngest charter boat deckhand in the Hawaiian harbor where he lives, and
all because his stepdad trusts him. Mikey won't let him down. But some seas, some
fish, and some clients are tougher to handle than others. When two men charter
the boat looking for the adventure of their lives, it's up to Mikey and Bill to
give it to them.
 | Outside magazine paid
Krakauer to join an expedition led by seasoned climber Ron Hall and report on
the safety of amateurs being led to the summit of Mount Everest. Before their
trip was over, the mountain had claimed the lives of five of Krakauer's fellow
climbers and the hand of a sixth. |
Hatchet / Brian's Winter / Brian's
Return 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.
Fourteen-year-old
Nathan, fishing with the Makah in the Pacific Northwest, finds himself holding
a vital clue when a mysterious stranger comes to town looking for Spanish treasure.
Bright Dawn must face the challenge
of the Iditarod dog sled race alone when her father is injured.
Between A Rock and a Hard Place In his family, taking
a 10-day trip in to the wilderness was a sort of "coming of age" ritual.
Mark had to make the trek with his diabetic cousin, who had never spent any time
in the woods. He thought they would probably get off to a rocky start, and then
work it all out - but he was wrong …
| A Girl Named Disaster by Nancy Farmer |
YA FIC FARMER |
Nhamo's mother was killed by a leopard, her father ran
off, and she is grudgingly adopted by her mother's family who promise her in marriage
to a cruel man with three wives. Fleeing, she struggles to escape drowning and
starvation and comes close to the luminous world of the African spirits.
| After his anger erupts
into violence, Cole, in order to avoid going to prison, agrees to participate
in a sentencing alternative based on the native American Circle Justice, and he
is sent to a remote Alaskan Island where an encounter with a huge Spirit Bear
changes his life. | |
"Hoods
in the Woods" is the nickname a group of teens have adopted for their survival
course in mountainous Colorado. Plans change when they ditch their instructor
and venture out on their own. (Sequel: River Thunder)
| Reef of Death by Paul Zindel |
YA FIC ZINDEL |
Seventeen-year-old PC McPhee tries to put together the
bizarre details of a deadly mystery: a missing scuba diver, a hidden treasure,
a seemingly deserted ship, a corrupt scientist, a beautiful girl suffering from
amnesia, and a deadly creature prowling the depths of an Australian reef.
Escaping from a juvenile detention center, Rick finds himself
in a sandstone puzzle of canyons and spires where he meets and bonds with feathered
friends.
| The Sacrifice by Diane Matcheck |
YA FIC MATCHECK |
When her father's death leaves her orphaned and
an outcast among her Apsaalooka (Crow) people, Weak-One-Who-Does-Not-Last sets
out to avenge his death and prove that she, not her dead twin brother, is destined
to be the Great One.
A strange beam of light transports thirteen-year-old
Mark to a primitive planet where he must choose between warring tribes while trying
to get back to Earth and his own time.
Tamo
White, son of a wealthy and famous pirate of the 18th century, takes orphaned
schoolmate Nathan and his prim sister Maud on a fantastical trip to Madagascar
where they face everything from cyclones to slavers.
Angry at being left
behind when her father and brother off to muster sheep, Alexa decides to search
in the wild for the otters previously seen only by a mystical Maori tribesman.
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A
troubled Indian boy goes to live with an elderly whose caring ways help the boy
become a man. (Sequel: Beardance) |
When the freighter on which they are traveling is torpedoed
by a German submarine during WWII, a white teen, blinded by a blow on the head,
and an old black man are stranded on a tiny Caribbean island where the young boy
acquires a new kind of vision, courage, and love from his old companion.
| Face
to Face by Marion Dane Bauer | YA
FIC BAUER | Picked on at school
by bullies, Michael confronts his fears during a trip to Colorado to see his father,
who works as a whitewater-rafting guide and whom Michael has not seen in eight
years.
Seventeen-year-old
Richie Perry, just out of his Harlem high school, enlists in the Army in the of
1967 and spends a devastating year on active duty in Vietnam.
| No
Way Out by Ivy Ruckman | YA
FIC RUCKMAN | Hiking along the
Virgin River in Utah, nineteen-year-old Amy, her fiance, and four friends battle
a flashflood. |
updated
November 28, 2007 |
questions?
email jennifer - josborne@brightonlibrary.info