Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Life as We Knew It enthralled and devastated readers with its brutal but hopeful look at an apocalyptic event--an asteroid hitting the moon, setting off a tailspin of horrific climate changes. Now this harrowing companion novel examines the same events as they unfold in New York City, revealed through the eyes of seventeen-year-old Puerto Rican Alex Morales. When Alex's parents disappear in... (more)

The Declaration

by Gemma Malley, G. R. Malley

It’s the year 2140 and Longevity drugs have all but eradicated old age. A never-aging society can’t sustain population growth, however…which means Anna should never have been born. Nor should any of the children she lives with at Grange Hall. The facility is full of boys and girls whose parents chose to have kids—called surpluses—despite a law forbidding them from doing so. These children are raised as servants,... (more)

A Girl Named Disaster (Orchard Classics)

A Girl Named Disaster (Orchard Classics)

by Nancy Farmer

Nhamo's mother is dead, and her father is gone. She is a virtual slave in her small African village. Before her twelfth birthday, Nhamo learns that she must marry a cruel man with three other wives--and decides desperately to run away. Alone on the river, in a stolen boat, she is swept into the uncharted heart of a great lake. There, she battles drowning, starvation, and wild animals, and comes to know Africa's... (more)

The Hunger Games: Book 1

The Hunger Games

by Suzanne Collins

Katniss is a 16-year-old girl living with her mother and younger sister in the poorest district of Panem, the remains of what used be the United States. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called, "The Hunger Games." The terrain, rules, and level of audience... (more)

The Resistance

by Gemma Malley

The year is 2140. Having escaped the horrors of Grange Hall, Peter and Anna are living freely on the Outside, trying hard to lead normal lives, but unable to leave the terror of the Declaration—and their experiences as surpluses—completely behind them. Peter is determined to infiltrate Pharma Corporation, which claims to have a new drug in the works; "Longevity+" will not just stop the ravages of old age, it is... (more)

The Young Man And The Sea

by Rodman Philbrick

Twelve-year-old Skiff Beaman's mom just died, and his fisherman dad is too depressed to drag himself off the couch and go to work. So these days Skiff has to take care of everything himself. But when his dad's boat sinks, Skiff discovers it will cost thousands to buy a new engine. Skiff's lobster traps won't earn him enough, but there are bigger fish in the sea -- bluefin tuna. If he can catch one of those... (more)

In the Shadow of Denali: Life and Death on Alaska's Mt. McKinley

In the Shadow of Denali: Life and Death on Alaska's Mt. McKinley

by Jonathan Waterman

For fans of Into Thin Air, here is a gripping narrative that brings to life both the sublime and the struggle of a climbers life. Two hundred and sixteen miles south of the Arctic circle is Denali, otherwise known as Mt. McKinley, the tallest mountain in North America, rising more than twenty thousand feet into the Alaskan sky. In this exhilarating account, Jonathan Waterman, a former guide on Denali,... (more)

Nanda Devi: The Tragic Expedition

by John Roskelley

In 1976, John Roskelley joined an expedition to climb Nanda Devi, the third highest mountain in the Indian Himalayas. This is the story of that ascent, led by top mountaineer Willi Unsoeld, whose young, inexperienced daughter, named for the peak, perished there. It is the story also of Ad Carter, part of the team that first summited Nanda Devi forty years earlier; and of Lou Reichert and Jim States, two of... (more)

Night I Disappeared

by Julie Reece Deaver

HELD HOSTAGE BY AN INNER WORLD Something scary is happening to seventeen-year-old Jamie Tessman. Ever since she and her mother arrived in Chicago, she's been plagued by freaky mind-slips and vivid daydreams about her sort-of boyfriend, Webb. When Jamie's inner world starts taking her hostage and keeping her imprisoned for longer periods of time, she becomes terrified that she is slowly losing her mind. ... (more)

K2, The Savage Mountain

by Charles S. Houston, Robert H. Bates

K2, the second highest peak in the world, is generally regarded as the most difficult and dangerous of all mountains. This is the dramatic story of the 1953 American expedition that was dealt a combination of terrible storms and illness, which stopped the climbers short of summit. It is the story, renowned in the annals of climbing, of how they made it back to safety after tragedy struck on the descent. ... (more)

Survive: Stories of Castaways and Cannibals

Survive: Stories of Castaways and Cannibals

by Nate Hardcastle, Clint Willis

Survive brings together stories about people who find themselves stuck in survival situations in lifeboats, mountains, desert islands, jungles and the arctic. Most of the stories are about ordinary people who must perform heroically to survive -- and some of them are forced to break our greatest taboo to stay alive. The narratives that have emerged are dramatic and compelling, involving issues of physical, moral,... (more)

Minus 148 Degrees: The First Winter Ascent of Mount McKinley

Minus 148 Degrees: The First Winter Ascent of Mount McKinley

by Art Davidson

The Mountaineers Books Climbing & Mountaineering 100148 By The Mountaineers Books

Extreme Alpinism: Climbing Light, Fast, and High

Extreme Alpinism: Climbing Light, Fast, and High

by Don Graydon, Mark Twight, James Martin

Big, high routes at the edge of a climber's ability are not the places for inventing technique or relying on old habits. Complacency can lead to fatal errors. So where does the hard-core aspirant or dreamer turn? The only master class in print, Extreme Alpinism delivers an expert dose of reality and practical techniques for advanced climbers. Focusing on how top alpine climbers approach the world's most... (more)

The Girl in the Green Sweater: A Life in Holocaust's Shadow

The Girl in the Green Sweater: A Life in Holocaust's Shadow

by Daniel Paisner, Krystyna Chiger

In 1943, with Lvov's 150,000 Jews having been exiled, killed, or forced into ghettos and facing extermination, a group of Polish Jews daringly sought refuge in the city's sewer system. The last surviving member this group, Krystyna Chiger, shares one of the most intimate, harrowing and ultimately triumphant tales of survival to emerge from the Holocaust. The Girl in the Green Sweater is Chiger's harrowing... (more)

Hippie Chick

by Joseph Monninger

15-year-old Lolly (short for Lollipop) Emmerson is a free-spirit, what others call; the hippie child of a hippie woman. Her favorite thing to do is sail her Boston Whaler in the Florida Keys. One night she runs into an underwater obstacle and the boat founders. After Lolly is knocked out and separated from the boat, she realizes that she's done for and accepts her own fate. That's when the manatees arrive. ... (more)

Still Summer

by Mitchard Jacquelyn

From BooklistFamily tragedies are Mitchard's stock-in-trade, and here she adds a suspenseful twist. Friends since childhood, Tracy, Holly, and Olivia charter a private yacht for some girl-time R & R, bringing along Tracy's 19-year-old daughter, Cammie. Manning the vessel are two Virgin Island residents: Lenny, the captain, and Michel, his mate. Just as some mounting mother-daughter tension between... (more)

A Girl Named Disaster

by Nancy Farmer

Life As We Knew ItSusan Beth Pfeffer

Life As We Knew It

by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Kalila and Dimna

by Ramsay Wood, Doris Lessing

"Racy, funny, vigorous, contemporary-I defy anyone not to finish it in one sitting."-Doris Lessing The tales of Kalila and Dimna originated almost two thousand years ago. These charming and humorous stories about animals have found their way in one form or another into the folklore of every major culture and tradition. What links the fables is the core message about managing power, wise leadership, and the... (more)

Touching the Void

by Joe Simpson

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. ... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: survival stories

by Susan Beth Pfeffer

by Gemma Malley, G. R. Malley

by Nancy Farmer

by Suzanne Collins

by Gemma Malley

by Rodman Philbrick

by Jonathan Waterman

by John Roskelley

by Julie Reece Deaver

by Charles S. Houston, Robert H. Bates

by Nate Hardcastle, Clint Willis

by Art Davidson

by Don Graydon, Mark Twight, James Martin

by Daniel Paisner, Krystyna Chiger

by Joseph Monninger

by Mitchard Jacquelyn

by Nancy Farmer

by Susan Beth Pfeffer

by Ramsay Wood, Doris Lessing

by Joe Simpson