Fiction Survival Stories

In a national contest, readers voted and decided that the next I Survived topic will be the Great Chicago Fire, 1871! In the next book of the I Survived series, one boy will struggle to stay alive as the great city of Chicago burns.

Don't call them heroes. But these six Californian teens have powers that set them apart. Take Ethan, aka Scam. He's got a voice inside him that'll say whatever you want to hear, whether it's true or not. Which is handy, except when it isn't - like when the voice starts gabbing in the middle of a bank robbery. The only people who can help are the other Zeroes, who aren't exactly best friends these days.

Thirteen-year-old Matthew is miserable. His journalist dad is stuck overseas indefinitely, and his mom has moved in his one-hundred-year-old great-grandmother to ride out the pandemic, adding to his stress and isolation. But when Matthew finds a tattered black-and-white photo in his great-grandmother’s belongings, he discovers a clue to a hidden chapter of her past, one that will lead to a life-shattering family secret.

Matt and Mike are best friends, just two working-class guys trying to earn some money in Montauk for the summer. When they meet Driana, JoJo, and Stef, three friends who live much different lives of privilege, Matt and Mike find themselves in a sticky situation where temptation rivals sensibility. Worlds collide when the group ventures out to sea aboard a small boat that Stef sneaks out from her dad's dock. As the waves rise and the fragile vessel weakens, things go horribly wrong. Adrift at sea for days, who will have what it takes to survive?

Nathan couldn't believe it. He, his dad, and his friend Colin were going on a cattle drive. But as they set out, the trip took unexpected turns. Nathan's dad had to leave them to hunt down an escaped crook. Then, Colin's friend Leah finagled her way along. When Pepper the cook hurt his foot and had to return to camp, the three kids were on their own. How would they round up cattle when they had never done it before? And how should they deal with the coyote family living beneath their cabin?

Emmett Atwater thought Babel's game sounded easy. Get points. Get paid. Go home. But it didn't take long for him to learn that Babel's competition was full of broken promises, none darker or more damaging than the last one. Now Emmett and the rest of the Genesis spaceship survivors must rally and forge their own path through a new world. Their mission from Babel is simple: extract nyxia, the most valuable material in the universe, and play nice with the indigenous Adamite population. But Emmett and the others quickly realize they are caught between two powerful forces.

A contemporary My Side of the Mountain, Stranded is the story of a wilderness-hungry Black girl from Manhattan whose journey in the Adirondack mountains becomes a nail-biting story of courage, independence, and survival.

In The Winter Pony, Iain Lawrence pens the mesmerizing tale of a young white Siberian pony who escapes a group of cruel masters only to enter the company of Englishman Robert Falcon Scott. Joining Scott’s men and their race to the South Pole, the pony is soon given a name, James Pigg, as he and the rest embark on a thrilling race to reach the bottom of the world - a race in which not everyone will survive.

When a plane crash-lands in the Arctic, eight young survivors step from the wreckage expecting to see nothing but ice and snow. Instead they find themselves lost in a strange jungle with no way to get home and little hope of rescue. Food is running out. Water is scarce. And the jungle is full of threats unlike anything the survivors have ever seen before - from razor-beaked shredder birds to carnivorous vines and much, much worse.

Brit Pheiffer has trained to backpack the Teton Range, but she isn’t prepared when her ex-boyfriend, who still haunts her every thought, wants to join her. Before Britt can explore her feelings for Calvin, an unexpected blizzard forces her to seek shelter in a remote cabin, accepting the hospitality of its two very handsome occupants - but these men are fugitives, and they take her hostage.

The last few weeks sent Ruby Behl's world into even more of a tailspin than when the Tercera virus first broke out. Her boyfriend might be dead, her best friend isn't dead, and the man she knew as her father may have kidnapped her at birth. Worse, the virus suppressant suddenly stopped working, accelerating the deaths of thousands. Finding a cure just went from important to critical. Unfortunately, an essential piece of the puzzle fell into the hands of David Solomon, a zealous cult leader planning to massacre the remaining Marked - unless Ruby gives him her blood, possibly all of it.

Liam Saunders-Chang is one of the last humans left on Mars. The son of two scientists who have been racing against time to create technology vital to humanity's survival, Liam, along with his friend Phoebe, will be on the last starliner to depart before Mars, like Earth before it, is destroyed. Or so he thinks. Because before this day is over, Liam and Phoebe will make a series of profound discoveries about the nature of time and space and find out that the human race is just one of many in our universe locked in a dangerous struggle for survival.

Last week, 12-year-old Sky found a cryptic message from her dad, who mysteriously fled the safety of their underground compound five years ago. The note said the fate of the world depended on her going topside, to a lost world that's ruled by dinosaurs. Today, after a treacherous journey through the wilderness, Sky and her friends have made it to their destination: Lake Michigan.

In his village in Upper Kwanta, 11-year-old Kofi loves his family, playing oware with his grandfather and swimming in the river Offin. He’s warned though, to never go to the river at night. His brother tells him ”There are things about the water you do not know. “ Like what? Kofi asks. “The beasts.” His brother answers.

When a powerful EMP blast knocks out power across the country, Molly, former Marine bus driver, Colton, and the five students they’re supervising are trapped inside a prison, surrounded by hardened criminals and with no safe exit. And it doesn’t take long for a riot to throw everything into even more chaos.

When Charlie’s longed-for brother is born with a serious heart condition, Charlie’s world is turned upside down. Upset and afraid, Charlie flees the hospital and makes for the ancient forest on the edge of town. There Charlie finds a boy floating face-down in the stream, injured, but alive. But when Charlie sets off back to the hospital to fetch help, it seems the forest has changed. It’s become a place as strange and wild as the boy dressed in deerskins.

Disaster has struck, and the Titanic is going down. What started as a thrilling voyage has turned into a fight for survival. For Paddy, Sophie, Juliana, and Alfie, every second counts in the race against death. All of their hiding and all of their seeking has come down to this: Can they save the people they love? Can they even save themselves? One cold, horrifying night will decide all of their fates.

A great cold has seized the Beyond. The warmth of summer, the smell of sweet grass, and the great caribou migrations are distant memories. Now the wolves know only ice, dark, snow, and endless cold. The order that kept the wolf clans strong for thousands of years has broken down completely. The wolves have only one chance for survival. They must find their way to a new land, a land of warmth and summer. But the journey will take them over a frozen sea and through thousands of miles of perilous territory. Will the wolves trust young Faolan to lead them?

For Sarah, Jago, Aisling, Maccabee, Shari, An, and Hilal, Endgame has reached its final phase. The third key, Sun Key, is all that stands between one Player saving their line - or perishing along with the rest of the world. And only one can win.

Last Halloween, Eleanor, Pip, and Otto narrowly escaped the clutches of the evil January Society and their leader. But life in the too-quiet Eden Eld isn’t safe just yet: According to the bargain they made with Mr. January, it’s now his sister’s turn to hunt the three of them. And her methods are a bit more...treacherous. When their friends and neighbors begin disappearing, abducted by strange, mud-drenched monsters, Eleanor and her two best friends must race to uncover their enemy’s secrets. If they fail, their families will be next.