And plenty of vicarious intensity for those of us who prefer just to read about it. “There is a magnificent intensity in life that comes when we are not in control but are only reacting, living, surviving,” he says. He’s also eloquent about the emotional content of his ordeal. Callahan was a trained engineer, and it’s fascinating to watch him jury rig the tools of his survival. One man is stranded at sea for 11 weeks on an inflatable raft.

Publisher: Harper Perennial | 2004 (Revised) | ISBN-13: 978-0060730550 Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost at Sea A heartbreaking story and plenty of fodder for debate about our responsibility to each other in extreme circumstances. Everest DisasterĪ freak snowstorm and a critical mass of amateur climbers conspire to strand dozens of people near the top of Everest. Publisher: Harper Perennial | 2004 (Revised) | ISBN-13: 978-0060730550 Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. There’s also a great film built around interviews and a recreation of the climb. Most of all, it’s impossible to put down. It’s a tale of almost inhuman endurance and an exploration of the absurd ethical dilemmas that arise on a mountainside at 20,000 feet. This is the lean, fast-moving, jaw-dropping story of one climber’s ordeal on a snow-bound mountain (the Andes again). Publisher: Penguin Books| 2015 (Reprint) | ISBN-13: 978-0143126812 Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man’s Miraculous Survival And yes, they eat each other in this one too. There’s a YA edition that focuses on a teenage crew member and cuts back on some of the great context about whaling, but the adult version is riveting. Its crew, set adrift in three 20-foot whaleboats, endures all kinds of hardship trying to make it back to shore. In the 1820s, a whaleship is rammed by one of its prey in mid-ocean.

Publisher: Harper Perennial | 2005 (Reprint) | ISBN-13: 978-0060778668 In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex Order a Copy Now: Indiebound | Amazon | Barnes and Noble I tell the story when I visit schools, and the grisly details only seem to draw kids in. This was my introduction to survival stories, and I didn’t leave my chair until I turned the last page. Alive: The Story of the Andes SurvivorsĪn Uruguayan rugby team is pushed into extreme culinary choices after a plane crash strands them in the Andes Mountains.

In that spirit, here are five classic nonfiction survival tales written for adults-to be read and passed on to young readers with a taste for adventure. When I was 11, an adult survival story turned me onto nonfiction, and I think every kid’s reading level rises when the material is gripping enough. Kids know all of this instinctively, which is why there are tens of millions of I Survived books in print and everyone has read Hatchet by the time they leave 8 th grade. There’s nothing like a good survival story: The conflict is clear, the stakes are as high as they get, and you know exactly what you’re rooting for. Tod Olson | The Children’s Book Review | JanuTod Olson

A survival story