Fiction Survival Stories

Thrown into solitary confinement for his failed escape attempt from furnace prison, Alex Sawyer struggles not to let the hellish pitch-black silence overwhelm him. Before another escape attempt is even possible, he must first survive the nightmare that now haunts his endless nights. Because the hole doesn’t need monsters to do its dirty work — not the usual brutes in black suits and their silver-eyed, fleshless hounds, or wheezing freaks with filthy syringes.

Far from the owls of Ga’Hoole, a war is brewing. A bear cub has been snatched by a wolf - an unthinkable betrayal of the peace that has long existed between the wolves and grizzly bears of the Beyond. The bears are massing, roaring for revenge. The wolves claim to be innocent, but they must either fight back or face total annihilation. For Faolan, a young wolf raised by a grizzly bear mother, the threat of war starts a terrible race. Somewhere in the honorable wolf clans hides a traitor, and Faolan must stop him and rescue the lost bear cub before it’s too late.

From the acclaimed author of the Chaos Walking trilogy and A Monster Calls comes one of the most provocative teen novels of our time. A boy named Seth drowns, desperate and alone in his final moments. But then he wakes. He is naked, thirsty, starving. But alive. How is this possible? He remembers dying, his bones breaking, his skull dashed upon the rocks. So how is he here? And where is this place? The street seems familiar, but everything is abandoned, overgrown, covered in dust.

June, 1941. Eleven-year-old Shmuel Sucha is startled awake by the sound of German planes over his hometown in western Ukraine. As the Nazi shadow begins to fall on their small Jewish community, Shmuel’s parents smuggle their son away to a local farm, just on the border of the surrounding forest.

When Leo and Naomi are drafted, along with 22 of the world's brightest teenagers, into the International Space Training Camp, their lives are forever changed. Overnight, they become global celebrities in contention for one of the six slots to travel to Europa - Jupiter's moon - and establish a new colony, leaving their planet forever. With Earth irreparably damaged, the future of the human race rests on their shoulders. But Naomi is suspicious of the ISTC and the fact that a similar mission failed under mysterious circumstances, killing the astronauts on board.

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.

The thrilling story of a young girl who stows away onboard the Titanic and as she explores, attempting to find answers to her many questions about the ship, suddenly finds herself caught up in the desperate struggle to survive after it strikes an iceberg. Hazel Rothbury is traveling all alone from her home in England aboard the celebrated ship Titanic. Following the untimely death of her father, Hazel's mother is sending her to the US to work in a factory, so that she might send money back home to help her family make ends meet.

Jack Phillips's allergy to sunshine confines him to the shadows, leaving him lonely, and at risk of life-threatening burns every time he steps into the light. Shadow jumping on the rooftops at dusk, makes him feel alive. And free. But Jack's condition is suddenly worse than ever, and only his missing scientist dad can save him. As Jack and his new friend, Beth, begin their frantic search and delve into his dad's past for clues, they have no idea what they are about to uncover.

For twelve-year-old Coral, having divorced parents means only getting to see her dad a few times each year. So when he invites her on a guided elk hunt—on horseback—in the Colorado mountains over fall break, Coral is thrilled. She's sure that this will be the adventure of a lifetime—and great bonding time with her father—even if she is nervous around horses.

The battlefield was soaked in blood. Screams of injured soldiers rang through the air. Eleven-year-old Nathaniel Knox knelt behind a rock, his gun clutched in his shaking hands. Nate had been heading to New York City to find his father. But now he was trapped in a terrible gunfight between American and British troops. This Revolutionary War had started as a thrilling fight for freedom. The 13 American colonies were breaking apart from England, away from King George III.

When the black rain began to fall, it was a worldwide phenomenon that mystified everyone. There was little time to ponder the cause. Most animals died at the onset. While some humans were unaffected, others experienced a half-death of sorts, morphing into blood and flesh-crazed creatures with a desire to hunt the living. Climbing Fox Wattana of the Henomawi Nation claims responsibility for the black rain; he says it will will ensure the ultimate extinction of the United States government as revenge for robbing his people of their land. Cole "CB" Baxter isn't taking this lying down.

After the fall of Summerland, Jane McKeene hoped her life would get simpler: Get out of town, stay alive, and head west to California to find her mother. But nothing is easy when you’re a girl trained in putting down the restless dead, and a devastating loss on the road to a protected village called Nicodemus has Jane questioning everything she thought she knew about surviving in 1880s America.

Inspired by Hobbs’ own journey through the Rio Grande’s canyons near the border with Mexico, Take Me to the River is a thrilling tale. Fourteen-year-old Dylan and his cousin are paddling the Rio Grande when they see six Black Hawk helicopters fly into Mexico. The army won’t say what’s happening, but they do tell the boys a hurricane is approaching. Undeterred, the boys continue their journey, unaware of what lies ahead.

Graham Salisbury has received numerous high-profile accolades from the ALA, VOYA, and several parent organizations. A Junior Library Guild Premier election, Night of the Howling Dogs is a rousing adventure set in Hawaii. On a Boy Scout trip, Dylan is looking forward to camping out at the foot of the Pu¹u Kapukapu volcano. But when an earthquake strikes, Dylan is forced to team up with a bully named Louie on a daring mission to rescue many of their scattered comrades.

For a brief period after the world changed forever, the self-reliant community of Trout Run Valley managed to avoid conflict. They practiced subsistence, and found safety and security within their numbers. As the post-apocalyptic timeline moved forward, it began to spiral downward. Takers had made their presence known, and their malevolent intentions clear, transforming the once benign community into a violent battleground.

Jessamy's life is a balance between acting like an upper class Patron and dreaming of the freedom of the Commoners. But at night she can be whomever she wants when she sneaks out to train for The Fives, an intricate, multilevel athletic competition that offers a chance for glory to the kingdom's best competitors.

It's been more than two years since Jon Evans and his family left Pennsylvania, hoping to find a safe place to live, yet Jon remains haunted by the deaths of those he loved. His prowess on a soccer field has guaranteed him a home in a well-protected enclave. But Jon is painfully aware that a missed goal, a careless word, even falling in love, can put his life and the lives of his mother, his sister Miranda, and her husband, Alex, in jeopardy. Can Jon risk doing what is right in a world gone so terribly wrong?

In a north London cemetery, a professor is kidnapped at gunpoint. Then, a suspicious letter crammed with cryptic clues arrives at Eton. To decipher the deadly mystery, James Bond must take a series of dangerous gambles. Once the code is cracked, he has just 48 hours to save the professor from the dark forces that threaten to destroy them both. And if they can't escape, it's not only their future under threat; it's the rest of the world.

Warsaw, 1942. Sixteen-year old Mira smuggles food into the ghetto to keep herself and her family alive. When she discovers that the entire ghetto is to be "liquidated" - killed or "resettled" to concentration camps - she desperately tries to find a way to save her family. She meets a group of young people who are planning the unthinkable: an uprising against the occupying forces. Mira joins the resistance fighters who, with minimal supplies and weapons, end up holding out for 28 days, longer than anyone had thought possible.

The Lockwood brothers are supposed to be able to survive anything. Their dad, a hardcore believer in self-reliance, has stockpiled enough food and water at their isolated Nevada home to last for months. But when they are robbed of all their supplies during a massive blackout while their dad is out of town, John and Stew must walk 96 miles in the stark desert sun to get help. Along the way, they’re forced to question their dad’s insistence on self-reliance and ask just what it is that we owe to our neighbors, our kin, and to ourselves.