Field Survival

Twenty-four hours: that's how long fourteen-year-old Elvira Gonzalez is given to come up with the $40,000 she needs to save her kidnapped mother from a drug cartel. It's 2006 and Elvira's hometown of Laredo, Texas, has become engulfed by the Mexican Drug War. Elvira's life is unraveling around her—setting her on a harrowing path that leads her to being locked up in one of South Texas's worst juvenile detention centers. After Elvira's released from juvie, she's resolved to never go back. That's when her unexpected salvation arrives in the form of 33-inch-high plastic hurdles.

A compilation of humorous pieces showing the lighter side of mounted hunting. J. Harris Anderson, a longtime chronicler of equestrian sports, has served as a field leader, whipper-in, and racecourse outrider. With an eye always toward the jocular side of life, he's assembled a batch of his work written over the past several years that's sure to entertain and amuse.

Survival Instructor Creek Stewart condenses 2 decades of friction fire mastery into this field guide titled Master the Bow Drill. This unique field guide is jam packed with everything you need to know to master the bow drill. From sourcing materials and carving skills to proper technique and important tips, Creek leaves no stone unturned when it comes to teaching you how to start a fire using sticks. Creek has taught 1000s of people from all over the world how to make fire using the bow drill.

With three hearts and blue blood, its gelatinous body unconstrained by jointed limbs or gravity, the octopus seems to be an alien, an inhabitant of another world. It’s baggy, boneless body sprouts eight arms covered with thousands of suckers—suckers that can taste as well as feel. The octopus also has the powers of a superhero: it can shape-shift, change color, squirt ink, pour itself through the tiniest of openings, or jet away through the sea faster than a swimmer can follow.

"Little Thumb" is the youngest of seven children in a poor woodcutter's family. His greater wisdom compensates for his smallness of size. When the children are abandoned by their parents, he finds a variety of means to save his life and the lives of his brothers. After being threatened and pursued by an ogre, Poucet steals his magic seven-league boots while the monster is sleeping.