Skills/Survival
Callahan, Steven. Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost at Sea. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2002. ISBN-13: 9780618257324
Callahan, a marine architect, lost his boat in a storm off the Canary Islands while engaged in a singlehanded race across the Atlantic in 1981. Luckily, he carried far more than the basic emergency equipment required, e.g., a six-person raft. Before sinking he was able to recover his emergency equipment bag and his life raft. Callahan admits to having read the survival accounts of Maurice and Maralyn Bailey ( Staying Alive , 1974) and Dougal Robertson ( Survive the Savage Sea , 1973) and even had the latter's manual Sea Survival (1975) with him in the raft. What makes his story different was his lack of a companion. Through his own ingenuity he learned how to spear fish, fix his solar still, and even repair his holed raft. This is a real human drama that delves deeply into a man's survival instincts. It should be read by anyone venturing offshore in a small boat.
Krakauer, Jon. Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. 2009. ISBN-13: 9780307475251 Mountain Climbing
When Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon of May 10, 1996, he hadn't slept in fifty-seven hours and was reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion. As he turned to begin his long, dangerous descent from 29,028 feet, twenty other climbers were still pushing doggedly toward the top. No one had noticed that the sky had begun to fill with clouds. Six hours later and 3,000 feet lower, in 70-knot winds and blinding snow, Krakauer collapsed in his tent, freezing, hallucinating from exhaustion and hypoxia, but safe. The following morning, he learned that six of his fellow climbers hadn't made it back to their camp and were desperately struggling for their lives. When the storm finally passed, five of them would be dead, and the sixth so horribly frostbitten that his right hand would have to be amputated.
Krakauer, Jon. Into the Wild. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. 1997. ISBN-13: 9780385486804
In April 1992, a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. He had given $25,000 in savings to a charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet and invented a life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. Jon Krakauer brings Chris McCandless's uncompromising pilgrimage out of the shadows and illuminates it with meaning in this mesmerizing and heartbreaking tour de force.
Lewis, Richard. The Killing Sea. Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing. 2008. ISBN-13: 9781416953722 Sumatra
Sixteen-year-old Sarah and her family are sailing through the Indonesian islands during Christmas vacation. Sarah's little brother, Peter, annoying as always, and Surf Cat, a half-grown kitten he befriended, are savoring the adventure but Sarah wishes she was back home again with her friends. One morning Sarah's father, the intrepid captain of the crew, anchors the sailboat and they clamber ashore in search of a mechanic to fix their engine. Ruslan, a local Indonesian teenager, curiously watches them as they draw near. He is magnetized by Sarah's blue eyes. Supposing he'll never see her again, he returns home that night and quietly sketches her portrait. Then he gazes out the window at the quiet moon shadows. Little does he know that his peaceful world is about to be torn into shreds by an angry wall of black water that charges into his village like a demented monster. With vivid descriptions, the author takes readers on a journey of horrific devastation in the aftermath of a tsunami. But he also weaves in a story of courage, hope, friendship, and survival as Ruslan, Sarah, Surf Cat, and other survivors struggle against fear, hunger, illness, rebels lurking in the shadows, and unspeakable scenes of death and decay in their effort to find missing family members and get medical help for Sarah's little brother, Peter. An excellent resource for generating discussions about tsunamis and other natural disasters, grief and loss, and friendship. Good for independent reading. Please note: Some disturbing scenes are included, as this. novel is based on the 2004 tsunami that struck Indonesia on Christmas Eve.
McCaughrean, Geraldine. White Darkness. HarperCollins Publishers. 2008. ISBN-13: 9780060890377 Antarctica
Sym is not your average teenage girl. She is obsessed with the Antarctic and the brave, romantic figure of Captain Oates from Scott's doomed expedition to the South Pole. In fact, Oates is the secret confidant to whom she spills all her hopes and fears. But Sym's uncle Victor is even more obsessed--and when he takes her on a dream trip into the bleak Antarctic wilderness, it turns into a nightmarish struggle for survival that will challenge everything she knows and loves.
Simpson, Joe. Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man’s Miraculous Survival. HarperCollins Publishers. 2004. ISBN-13: 9780060730550
Joe Simpson and his climbing partner, Simon Yates, had just reached the top of a 21,000-foot peak in the Andes when disaster struck. Simpson plunged off the vertical face of an ice ledge, breaking his leg. In the hours that followed, darkness fell and a blizzard raged as Yates tried to lower his friend to safety. Finally, Yates was forced to cut the rope, moments before he would have been pulled to his own death. The next three days were an impossibly grueling ordeal for both men. Yates, certain that Simpson was dead, returned to base camp consumed with grief and guilt over abandoning him. Miraculously, Simpson had survived the fall, but crippled, starving, and severely frostbitten was trapped in a deep crevasse. Summoning vast reserves of physical and spiritual strength, Simpson crawled over the cliffs and canyons of the Andes, reaching base camp hours before Yates had planned to leave. How both men overcame the torments of those harrowing days is an epic tale of fear, suffering, and survival, and a poignant testament to unshakable courage and friendship.
Callahan, a marine architect, lost his boat in a storm off the Canary Islands while engaged in a singlehanded race across the Atlantic in 1981. Luckily, he carried far more than the basic emergency equipment required, e.g., a six-person raft. Before sinking he was able to recover his emergency equipment bag and his life raft. Callahan admits to having read the survival accounts of Maurice and Maralyn Bailey ( Staying Alive , 1974) and Dougal Robertson ( Survive the Savage Sea , 1973) and even had the latter's manual Sea Survival (1975) with him in the raft. What makes his story different was his lack of a companion. Through his own ingenuity he learned how to spear fish, fix his solar still, and even repair his holed raft. This is a real human drama that delves deeply into a man's survival instincts. It should be read by anyone venturing offshore in a small boat.
Krakauer, Jon. Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. 2009. ISBN-13: 9780307475251 Mountain Climbing
When Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon of May 10, 1996, he hadn't slept in fifty-seven hours and was reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion. As he turned to begin his long, dangerous descent from 29,028 feet, twenty other climbers were still pushing doggedly toward the top. No one had noticed that the sky had begun to fill with clouds. Six hours later and 3,000 feet lower, in 70-knot winds and blinding snow, Krakauer collapsed in his tent, freezing, hallucinating from exhaustion and hypoxia, but safe. The following morning, he learned that six of his fellow climbers hadn't made it back to their camp and were desperately struggling for their lives. When the storm finally passed, five of them would be dead, and the sixth so horribly frostbitten that his right hand would have to be amputated.
Krakauer, Jon. Into the Wild. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. 1997. ISBN-13: 9780385486804
In April 1992, a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. He had given $25,000 in savings to a charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet and invented a life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. Jon Krakauer brings Chris McCandless's uncompromising pilgrimage out of the shadows and illuminates it with meaning in this mesmerizing and heartbreaking tour de force.
Lewis, Richard. The Killing Sea. Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing. 2008. ISBN-13: 9781416953722 Sumatra
Sixteen-year-old Sarah and her family are sailing through the Indonesian islands during Christmas vacation. Sarah's little brother, Peter, annoying as always, and Surf Cat, a half-grown kitten he befriended, are savoring the adventure but Sarah wishes she was back home again with her friends. One morning Sarah's father, the intrepid captain of the crew, anchors the sailboat and they clamber ashore in search of a mechanic to fix their engine. Ruslan, a local Indonesian teenager, curiously watches them as they draw near. He is magnetized by Sarah's blue eyes. Supposing he'll never see her again, he returns home that night and quietly sketches her portrait. Then he gazes out the window at the quiet moon shadows. Little does he know that his peaceful world is about to be torn into shreds by an angry wall of black water that charges into his village like a demented monster. With vivid descriptions, the author takes readers on a journey of horrific devastation in the aftermath of a tsunami. But he also weaves in a story of courage, hope, friendship, and survival as Ruslan, Sarah, Surf Cat, and other survivors struggle against fear, hunger, illness, rebels lurking in the shadows, and unspeakable scenes of death and decay in their effort to find missing family members and get medical help for Sarah's little brother, Peter. An excellent resource for generating discussions about tsunamis and other natural disasters, grief and loss, and friendship. Good for independent reading. Please note: Some disturbing scenes are included, as this. novel is based on the 2004 tsunami that struck Indonesia on Christmas Eve.
McCaughrean, Geraldine. White Darkness. HarperCollins Publishers. 2008. ISBN-13: 9780060890377 Antarctica
Sym is not your average teenage girl. She is obsessed with the Antarctic and the brave, romantic figure of Captain Oates from Scott's doomed expedition to the South Pole. In fact, Oates is the secret confidant to whom she spills all her hopes and fears. But Sym's uncle Victor is even more obsessed--and when he takes her on a dream trip into the bleak Antarctic wilderness, it turns into a nightmarish struggle for survival that will challenge everything she knows and loves.
Simpson, Joe. Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man’s Miraculous Survival. HarperCollins Publishers. 2004. ISBN-13: 9780060730550
Joe Simpson and his climbing partner, Simon Yates, had just reached the top of a 21,000-foot peak in the Andes when disaster struck. Simpson plunged off the vertical face of an ice ledge, breaking his leg. In the hours that followed, darkness fell and a blizzard raged as Yates tried to lower his friend to safety. Finally, Yates was forced to cut the rope, moments before he would have been pulled to his own death. The next three days were an impossibly grueling ordeal for both men. Yates, certain that Simpson was dead, returned to base camp consumed with grief and guilt over abandoning him. Miraculously, Simpson had survived the fall, but crippled, starving, and severely frostbitten was trapped in a deep crevasse. Summoning vast reserves of physical and spiritual strength, Simpson crawled over the cliffs and canyons of the Andes, reaching base camp hours before Yates had planned to leave. How both men overcame the torments of those harrowing days is an epic tale of fear, suffering, and survival, and a poignant testament to unshakable courage and friendship.