Fiction Survival Stories

Millions of readers of Hatchet, The River, Brian’s Winter, and Brian’s Return know that Brian Robeson is at home in the Canadian wilderness. He has stood up to the challenge of surviving alone in the woods. He prefers being on his own in the natural world to civilization. When Brian finds a dog one night, a dog that is wounded and whimpering, he senses danger. The dog is badly hurt, and as Brian cares for it, he worries about his Cree friends who live north of his camp. With his new companion at his side, and with a terrible, growing sense of unease, he sets out to learn what happened.

The Garde have suffered an unbearable loss. Number Five has betrayed them. Eight is gone forever. Ella has been kidnapped. The others are now scattered. In Chicago, John makes the unlikeliest of allies: a Mogadorian named Adam, who has switched sides. Adam knows the Mogs secrets, and he knows where to hit them: their command base near Washington, DC. But during the assault, John learns he and the Garde might be too late. The Mogadorians have commenced their ultimate invasion plans.

McKenna Barney is trying to hide her worsening eyesight and has been isolating herself for the last year. But at the request of her little sister, she signs up for a commemorative mail run race in the Canadian wilderness - a race she doesn't know if she can even see to run. Winning would mean getting her disease - and her sister's - national media coverage, but it would also pit McKenna and her team of eight sled dogs against racers from across the globe for three days of shifting lake ice, sudden owl attacks, snow squalls, and bitterly cold nights.

The windows between the many worlds have been sealed, and the momentous adventures of Lyra Silvertongue’s youth are long behind her - or so she thought. Lyra is now a 20-year-old undergraduate at St. Sophia’s College, and intrigue is swirling around her once more. Her daemon, Pantalaimon, is witness to a brutal murder, and the dying man entrusts them with secrets that carry echoes from their past. The more Lyra is drawn into these mysteries, the less she is sure of.

In 1985 southern Sudan is ravaged by war. Rebels and government forces battle for control, with ordinary people…people like the boy, Salva Dut…caught in the middle. When Salva's village is attacked, he must embark on a harrowing journey that will propel him through horror and heartbreak, across a harsh desert, and into a strange new life. Years later, in contemporary South Sudan, a girl named Nya must walk eight hours a day to fetch water. The walk is grueling, but there is unexpected hope.

The drought - or the Tap-Out, as everyone calls it - has been going on for a while now. Everyone’s lives have become an endless list of don’ts: don’t water the lawn, don’t fill up your pool, don’t take long showers. Until the taps run dry. Suddenly, Alyssa’s quiet suburban street spirals into a warzone of desperation; neighbors and families turned against each other on the hunt for water. And when her parents don’t return and her life - and the life of her brother - is threatened, Alyssa has to make impossible choices if she’s going to survive.

"I thought things would change when I found the others. We would stop running. We would fight the Mogadorians. And we would win. But I was wrong. Even though we have come together, we barely escaped from the Mogadorians with our lives. And now we're in hiding, trying to figure out our next move. The six of us are powerful - but we're not yet strong enough to take on their entire army. We haven't discovered the full extent of our Legacies. We haven't learned to work together. And there's still so much that we don't know about the Elders or their plan for us."

When 12-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. Her only companions are a Rottweiler named George and all the books she can read. After a rough start, Maddie learns to trust her own ingenuity and invents clever ways to survive in a place that has been deserted and forgotten.

When the world started to fall apart, the government gave everyone two choices: move into the Bubble Cities... or take their chances outside. Twelve-year-old Maggie and her family chose the latter. They live in the world that was left behind. Deciding it's time to grow up and grow tough, Maggie rechristens herself "Ford Falcon" - a name taken from the beat-up car she finds at a nearby junkyard. This is where Ford's family goes to scavenge for things they can use and barter with.

Something terrible has finally happened. A nuclear holocaust has destroyed civilization. For one whole year, 16-year-old Ann Burden has lived alone on her family’s farm, somehow sheltered from the radiation in the valley. As she hears the final radio station going off the air, she believes she is the only person left alive. But when Ann sees smoke from a faraway campfire, she knows there is at least one other survivor....

In the blink of an eye, everyone disappears. Gone. Except for the young. There are teens, but not one single adult. Just as suddenly, there are no phones, no Internet, no television. No way to get help. And no way to figure out what's happened. Hunger threatens. Bullies rule. A sinister creature lurks. Animals are mutating. And the teens themselves are changing, developing new talents - unimaginable, dangerous, deadly powers - that grow stronger by the day. It's a terrifying new world.

It's been several months since Lina and Doon escaped the dying city of Ember and, along with the rest of their people, joined the town of Sparks. Now, struggling through the harsh winter aboveground, they find an unusual book. Torn up and missing most of its pages, it alludes to a mysterious device from before the Disaster, which they believe is still in Ember.

Jimmy Benge is excited to celebrate his thirteenth birthday with an ice fishing adventure in northern Minnesota. He's even allowed to invite his best friend, Ryan, to spend winter break at the family’s lakeside home. The two boys learn a lot about ice fishing and catch a few panfish but decide to fish for something bigger: Northern pike, the alpha predators of the lake.

It has been over a year since the invasion of Earth was thwarted in Pittacus Lore's United as One. But in order to win, our alien allies known as the Garde unleashed their Loric energy that spread throughout the globe. Now human teenagers have begun to develop incredible powers of their own, known as Legacies. To help these incredible and potentially dangerous individuals - and put the world at ease - the Garde have created an academy where they can train this new generation to control their powers.

For Vega and her family, salmon is life. And Vega is learning to be a salmon finder, preparing for the day when she will be her family’s matriarch. But then she and her brother Deneb are separated from their pod when a devastating earthquake and tsunami render the seascape unrecognizable. Vega must use every skill she has to lead her brother back to their family. The young orcas face a shark attack, hunger, the deep ocean, and polluted waters on their journey. Will Vega become the leader she’s destined to be?

Centuries after nuclear war has destroyed our planet, humanity struggles to rebuild. It's been a month since the dropships landed and the rest of the Colonists joined the 100 on the ground. The teens, once branded juvenile delinquents, are now leaders among their people. But suddenly a new threat looms on the horizon - something neither Colonists or Earthborns have prepared for. In this thrilling fourth installment, Clarke, Bellamy, Wells, and Glass are pushed to the limits as they fight to protect their people...and to survive.

Audie Award, Multi-Voiced Performance, 2016. The year is 2575, and two rival mega-corporations are at war over a planet that's little more than an ice-covered speck at the edge of the universe. Too bad nobody thought to warn the people living on it. With enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra - who are barely even talking to each other - are forced to fight their way onto one of the evacuating fleet, with an enemy warship in hot pursuit.

They thought it couldn't get any worse. They were wrong.

After their plan to rescue the prince of Gallica has gone horribly wrong, Will Treaty and his apprentice, Maddie, are being held captive at the Chateau des Falaises in Gallica. The dangerous baron Lassigny is intent on keeping them - and the prince - no matter what. But Will and Maddie are determined to escape. If they ever want to return to their home, they’ll have to find ways to outwit the baron and get outside the locked tower. When friends from home endeavor to find their own way to help, it seems escape is closer than ever.

Jake and Taylor Wilder have been taking care of themselves for a long time. Their father abandoned the family years ago, and their mother is too busy working and running interference between the boys and her boyfriend, Bull, to spend a lot of time with them. Thirteen-year-old Jake spends most of his time reading. He pores over his father's journal, which is full of wilderness facts and survival tips. Eleven-year-old Taylor likes to be outside playing with their dog, Cody, or joking around with the other kids in the neighborhood. But one night everything changes.