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DOH
Street Child (age 10+)
by Berlie Doherty
survival ... historical ... school
A novel based on the life of Jim Jarvis, a young orphan who escapes the workhouse in London in the 1860s and survives brutal treatment and desparate circumstances until he is taken by Dr. Barnardo, founder of a school for the city's ragged children.
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FOX
Monkey Island (age 10+)
by Paula Fox
survival ... family
Eleven-year-old Clay Garrity is on his own. His father lost his job and left the family. Now Clay's mother is gone from their welfare hotel. Clay is homeless and out on the streets of New York. In the park he meets two homeless men. Buddy and Calvin become Clay's new family during those harsh winter weeks. But the streets are filled with danger and despair. If Clay leaves the streets he may never find his parents again. But if he stays on the streets he may not survive at all.
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LYO
Letters From a Slave Girl the Story of Harriet Jacobs (age 10+)
by Mary E. Lyons
letters/journal ... historical ... survival
Harriet Jacobs was born into slavery; it's the only life she has ever known. Now, with the death of her mistress, there is a chance she will be given her freedom, and for the first time Harriet feels hopeful. But hoping can be dangerous, because disappointment is devastating. Harriet has one last hope, though: escape to the North. And as she faces numerous ordeals, this hope gives her the strength she needs to survive.
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DEF
Robinson Crusoe (age 10+)
by Daniel Defoe
historical ... adventure ... survival
This classic story of a shipwrecked mariner on a deserted island is perhaps the greatest adventure in all of English literature. Fleeing from pirates, Robinson Crusoe is swept ashore in a storm possessing only a knife, a box of tobacco, a pipe-and the will to survive. His is the saga of a man alone: a man who overcomes self-pity and despair to reconstruct his life; who painstakingly teaches himself how to fashion a pot, bake bread, build a canoe; and who, after twenty-four agonizing years of solitude, discovers a human footprint in the sand... Consistently popular since its first publication in 1719, Daniel Defoe's story of human endurance in an exotic, faraway land exerts a timeless appeal.
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COM
What Jamie Saw (age 10+)
by Carolyn Coman
survival ... family
Publisher comments: A story of survival: how nine-year-old Jamie, his mother, and his baby sister Nin leave a violent, abusive situation, move to a small trailer in the woods, and slowly learn how to trust the people around them, and each other.
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UCH
Journey to Topaz: a Story of the Japanese-American Evacuation (age 10+)
by Yoshiko Uchida
identity ... survival ... bigotry ... historical
After the Pearl Harbor attack, an eleven-year-old Japanese-American girl and her family are forced to go to an aliens camp in Utah.
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TEM
Tonight, By Sea: a Novel (age 10+)
by Frances Temple
survival ... voyages/journeys
As governmental brutality and poverty become unbearable, Paulie joins with others in her small Haitian village to help her uncle secretly build a boat they will use to try to escape to the United States.
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TEM
Grab Hands and Run (age 10+)
by Frances Temple
survival ... voyages/journeys
After his father disappears, twelve-year-old Felipe, his mother, and his younger sister set out on a difficult and dangerous journey, trying to make their way from their home in El Salvador to Canada.
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MOR
Waiting for Anya (age 10+)
by Michael Morpurgo
war ... survival ... adventure ... historical
Jo and Benjamin devise an elaborate escape plan to save a band of Jewish children in Vichy, France during World War II.
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HOB
Far North (age 10+)
by Will Hobbs
adventure ... survival
Fifteen-year-old Texan Gabe flies north into the wild subarctic of Canada to visit his dad who is working at a diamond mine. A tragic accident leaves Gabe and his roommate Raymond stranded in a remote region of Canada. Raymond is forced to recall the wilderness knowledge that he learned in his youth in order to survive, and Gabe must find the inner strength to save them both after Raymond is injured in an icefall.
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HEN
Wish Me Luck (age 10+)
by James Heneghan
war ... voyages/journeys ... historical ... adventure ... survival
While on an ocean voyage to Canada during World War II, to escape the air raids in his Liverpool home, twelve-year-old Jaimie Monaghan faces another kind of life-threatening situation.
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ECK
Incident at Hawk's Hill (age 10+)
by Allan W. Eckert
animals ... survival ... adventure
Six-year-old Ben is very small for his age, and gets along better with animals than people. One June day in 1870, Ben wanders away from his home on Hawk's Hill and disappears into the waving prairie grass. This is the story of how a shy, lonely boy survives for months in the wilds and forges a bond with a female badger.
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ADA
Watership Down (age 10+)
by Richard Adams
voyages/journeys ... survival ... adventure
This stirring tale of adventure follows the journey of a group of brave creatures from their once-idyllic home to a place they hope will offer them a safer life.
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PAU
Hatchet (age 10+)
by Gary Paulsen
growing up ... survival ... adventure
Thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson is on his way to visit his father when the single engine plane in which he is flying crashes. Suddenly, Brian finds himself alone in the Canadian wilderness with nothing but his clothing, a tattered windbreaker, and the hatchet his mother has given him as a present ¿ and the dreadful secret that has been tearing him apart ever since his parents' divorce. But now Brian has no time for anger, self-pity, or despair ¿ it will take all his know-how and determination, and more courage than he knew he possessed, to survive.
sequel: Brian's Winter
sequel: Brian's Return
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WAT
So Far From the Bamboo Grove (age 10+)
by Yoko Kawashima Watkins
war ... historical ... adventure ... survival
Though Japanese, eleven-year-old Yoko has lived with her family in northern Korea near the border with China all her life. But when the Second World War comes to an end, Japanese on the Korean peninsula are suddenly in terrible danger; the Korean people want control of their homeland and they want to punish the Japanese, who have occupied their nation for many years. Yoko, her mother and sister are forced to flee from their beautiful house with its peaceful bamboo grove. Their journey is terrifying, and remarkable. It's a true story of courage and survival.
sequel: My Brother, My Sister, and I
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VOI
Homecoming (age 10+)
by Cynthia Voigt
growing up ... survival ... family
In the first book of Cynthia Voigt's Tillerman cycle, the four Tillerman children, abandoned by their emotionally ill mother, undertake a difficult journey in search of a place to call home.
sequel: Dicey's Song
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PAU
Tucket Adventures Series (age 10+)
by Gary Paulsen
historical ... adventure ... survival
In the first book, Mr. Tucket, Fourteen-year-old Francis Tucket is heading west on the Oregon Trail with his family by wagon train. When he receives a rifle for his birthday, he is thrilled that he is being treated like an adult. But Francis lags behind to practice shooting and is captured by Pawnees. It will take wild horses, hostile tribes, and a mysterious one-armed mountain man named Mr. Grimes to help Francis become the man who will be called Mr. Tucket.
title: Mr. Tucket
title: Call Me Francis Tucket
title: Tucket's Gold
title: Tucket's Home
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O'D
Sarah Bishop (age 10+)
by Scott O'Dell
war ... survival ... family ... historical
Left alone after the deaths of her father and brother who take opposite sides in the War for Independence, and fleeing from the British who seek to arrest her, Sarah Bishop struggles to shape a new life for herself in the wilderness.
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LEV
Journey to America (age 10+)
by Sonia Levitin
survival ... historical ... family
A Jewish family fleeing Nazi Germany in 1938 endures innumerable separations before they are once again united.
sequel: Silver Days
sequel: Annie's Promise
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LAW
The Wreckers (age 10+)
by Iain Lawrence
survival ... adventure
In the first book of the High Seas Trilogy, a ship crashes upon the shore of the Isle of Skye. A 14-year-old survivor must continue to fight for his life against the wreckers--a coastal community of murderous people who pillage shipwrecked vessels to feed and cloth themselves and decorate their homes.
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CUS
Rodzina (age 10+)
by Karen Cushman
identity ... survival ... historical ... family
One of a group of orphans, 12-year-old Rodzina boards a train on a cold day in March 1881. She's reluctant to leave Chicago, the only home she can remember, and she knows there's no substitute for the family she has lost. As the train rattles westward, Rodzina unwittingly begins to develop attachments to her fellow travelers, and to accept the idea that there might be good homes for orphans--maybe even for a big, combative Polish girl. But no placement seems right for the formidable Rodzina, and she cleverly finds a way out of one bad situation after another, until at last she finds the family that is right for her.
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TUR
Maroo of the Winter Caves (age 10+)
by Ann Turnbull
family ... historical ... survival ... nature
Maroo, a girl of the late Ice Age, must take charge after her father is killed, and lead her little brother, mother, and aged grandmother to the safety of the winter camp before the first blizzards strike.
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LOW
Number the Stars (age 10+)
by Lois Lowry
survival ... bigotry ... friendship ... historical
In 1943, during the German occupation of Denmark, ten-year-old Annemarie learns how to be brave and courageous when she helps shelter her Jewish friend from the Nazis.
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GIF
Nory Ryan's Song (age 10+)
by Patricia Reilly Giff
survival ... historical ... adventure
As the potato blight that leads to the Irish Famine takes its toll on her family, 12-year-old Nory Ryan must summon the courage and ingenuity to find food, to find hope, and to find a way to help her family survive.
sequel: Maggie's Door
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GEO
Julie of the Wolves (age 10+)
by Jean Craighead George
identity ... survival ... nature ... adventure
To her small Eskimo village, she is known as Miyax; to her friend in San Francisco, she is Julie. When her life in the village becomes dangerous, Miyax runs away, only to find herself lost in the Alaskan wilderness.
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DUP
The Book of Ember Series (age 10+)
by Jeanne Duprau
survival ... action ... adventure ... fantasy ... science fiction
Publisher comments: Built as an underground refuge for the human race, the city of Ember begins to deteriorate as its lights start to flicker. When Lina finds part of an ancient message, she's sure it holds a secret that will save the city. She and her friend Doon must decipher the message before the lights go out on Ember forever.
title: The City of Ember
title: The People of Sparks
title: The Prophet of Yonwood

Barron Park Elementary School, Sat Aug 25 11:55:26 2012
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