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Wilderness & Survival Stories

Of all the conflicts in literature, Man vs. Nature remains one of the most interesting and exciting. Brian hunting with a handmade bow and arrows; Robinson Crusoe finding God in a savage tropical landscape; Humphrey shelling his softness for strength on Wolf Larsen's ship; even the Swiss Family Robinson turning a jungle into a home—all of these stories not only quench our thirst for adventure, they reveal both the wild and the cultural impulses in the human heart.

Human beings, after all, can become very wild very rapidly. Adam was made in a Garden, after all, and his limbs were shaped out of dirt, and the breath God gave him was snorted right out of the divine nostrils. But God didn't leave man beast-like in the wilds to just eat, mate, and die like the rest of the animals. God created man in his image, to imitate him in culturing what was wild, bringing out of chaos order and beauty.

This is essentially the plot of every Man vs. Nature story. Man, thrown into battle with implacable landscapes, naturally turns his will and ability to subduing them. He cannot simply remain a wild thing; of course he must adapt, but he must also force nature to adapt to him, to accept the innate lordship of man and to serve him even as it fights him.

The miracle is that, finding Nature resistant to his culturalizing impulse, man also discovers Creation to be loving, almost mother-like in its protective impulses. While there's an element of pagan mysticism in the scene, who can forget Brian's realization in Hatchet that his fate and existence is overwhelmingly bound up with the lake from which he drinks? Nature kills, but Nature also preserves, retaining without consciousness an element of the original life-giving purpose for which God made it.

But the warmth of Nature mustn't be turned into more than it is—it mustn't be worshipped. It is merely a mirror of God's power of life and death, a picture of his unfathomable greatness and his particular care and love. And again, Nature is not God, and God is not Nature. Nature depends on God, the Creator of all things, and as such it reveals his glory even as it brings men in for a closer look, a look which will invariably change the onlooker.

There are plenty of great wilderness survival stories that aren't explicitly or even implicitly Christian. But the good ones all explore man's relationship to the elements in a way that doesn't overstate Nature's power or man's ability to overcome it, and do so in a way that is exciting and fascinating rather than ploddingly philosophical (like this brief essay). Those listed below are among the best we've found, and many of them are included in our lists of favorite books.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he is a husband and father, teaches adult Sunday school in his Presbyterian congregation, and likes weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.

 

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Wilderness & Survival Stories
59 Items found Print
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Balto and the Great Race
Totally True Adventures
by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel
1st Printing from Random House Books for Young Readers
for 1st-3rd grade
in Animal Stories (Location: FIC-ANI)
$5.99
Black Star, Bright Dawn
by Scott O'Dell
from Sandpiper Books
for 7th-9th grade
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
$7.99
Call it Courage
by Armstrong Sperry
from Aladdin Paperbacks
Realistic Fiction for 2nd-6th grade
1941 Newbery Medal winner
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
$4.99
Death Walk
by Walt Morey
1st edition from Blue Heron Publishing
for 10th-12th grade
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
$7.00 (1 in stock)
Death Walk
by Walt Morey
1st edition from Blue Heron Publishing
for 10th-12th grade
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
ECL: Two Little Savages
by Ernest Thompson Seton
from Classic Press
for 5th-8th grade
in Educator Classic Library (Location: VIN-ECL)
Gold Rush Dogs
by Claire Rudolf Murphy, Jane G. Haigh
from Alaska Northwest Books
for 4th-9th grade
in California Gold Rush (Location: HISA-19CGR)
$5.50 (1 in stock)
Hatchet
by Gary Paulsen
from Aladdin Paperbacks
for 4th-8th grade
1988 Newbery Honor Book
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
$8.99 $4.50 (1 in stock)
Hitch
by Jeanette Ingold
from Harcourt
Realistic Fiction for 10th-12th grade
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
$7.99
I Survived the Attacks of September 11, 2001
by Lauren Tarshis
from Scholastic Inc.
for 1st-4th grade
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
$2.50 (1 in stock)
I Survived the Battle of Gettysburg, 1863
by Lauren Tarshis
from Scholastic Inc.
for 3rd-5th grade
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
$2.50 (1 in stock)
I Survived the Bombing of Pearl Harbor, 1941
by Lauren Tarshis
from Scholastic Inc.
for 3rd-5th grade
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
$2.50 (1 in stock)
I Survived the Japanese Tsunami, 2011
by Lauren Tarshis
from Scholastic Inc.
for 2nd-4th grade
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
$3.00 (1 in stock)
I Survived the Shark Attacks of 1916
I Survived
by Lauren Tarshis
from Scholastic Reference
for 2nd-4th grade
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$2.50 (1 in stock)
If We Survive
by Andrew Klavan
from Thomas Nelson Publishers
for 8th-12th grade
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
$9.99
Island of the Blue Dolphins
by Scott O'Dell
from Houghton Mifflin
Realistic Fictio for 5th-8th grade
1961 Newbery Medal Winner
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$12.00 (2 in stock)
Island of the Blue Dolphins
by Scott O'Dell
Anv from Sandpiper Books
Realistic Fiction for 5th-8th grade
1961 Newbery Medal winner
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$8.99 $5.00 (1 in stock)
Julie of the Wolves
"Julie" Trilogy Book 1
by Jean Craighead George
from HarperCollins
Adventure for 7th-10th grade
1973 Newbery Medal winner
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
$7.99
Kensuke's Kingdom
by Michael Morpurgo
from Scholastic Inc.
for 4th-7th grade
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
$5.99 $3.00 (1 in stock)
Lost in the Barrens
by Farley Mowat
from Starfire
for 7th-12th grade
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
$6.99
Man Who Saved Robinson Crusoe
by James Poling
from W. W. Norton and Co.
for 7th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Mary on Horseback
by Rosemary Wells
from Puffin Books
for 4th-6th grade
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
$4.99 $2.50 (2 in stock)
My Side of the Mountain
by Jean Craighead George
from Puffin Books
Adventure for 4th-8th grade
1960 Newbery Honor Book
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
$8.99
My Side of the Mountain Series
by Jean Craighead George
from Puffin Books
Adventure for 4th-8th grade
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
$21.22
Naya Nuki
by Kenneth Thomasma
from Baker Books
Historical Fiction for 4th-6th grade
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Peak
by Roland Smith
1st edition from Harcourt Children's Books
for 4th-7th grade
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
Prisoners in the Snow
by Arthur Catherall
from Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books
for 4th-8th grade
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
Return to Hawk's Hill
Incident at Hawk's Hill, Book 2
by Allan W. Eckert
from Little, Brown & Company
for 4th-8th grade
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
Robinson Crusoe
by Daniel Defoe
from Doubleday & Company
for 9th-Adult
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
Robinson Crusoe
by Daniel Defoe, illustrated by N.C. Wyeth
from Atheneum
for 6th-10th grade
in Scribner Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SCRIB)
$24.99
Robinson Crusoe
by Daniel Defoe, illustrated by N.C. Wyeth
from SeaWolf Press
for 6th-10th grade
in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW)
$9.95
Robinson Crusoe
Macmillan Classics
by Daniel Defoe, illustrated by Federico Castellon
from Macmillan
for 6th-10th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Robinson Crusoe (abridged)
Junior Deluxe Editions
by Daniel Defoe, illustrated by Fritz Kredel
from Grosset & Dunlap
for 6th-12th grade
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
Robinson Crusoe (abridged)
by Daniel Defoe
from Atheneum
for 6th-10th grade
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
Robinson Crusoe (abridged)
by Daniel Defoe, illustrated by N.C. Wyeth and Louis & Frederick Rhead
from Dilithium Press, Ltd.
for 4th-8th grade
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
Robinson Crusoe (abridged)
Illustrated Junior Library Series 2
by Daniel Defoe
from Grosset & Dunlap
for 10th-Adult
in Illustrated Junior Library (Location: VIN-IJL)
Robinson Crusoe (abridged)
Illustrated Junior Library Series 3
by Daniel Defoe
from Grosset & Dunlap
for 10th-Adult
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
Robinson Crusoe - pocket edition
Oxford Pocket Classics
by Daniel Defoe
from Avenel Books
for 6th-10th grade
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
Robinson Crusoe Written Anew for Children
by James Baldwin
from Yesterday's Classics
for 2nd-4th grade
in Classics Retold (Location: FIC-RET)
$9.95
Rolf in the Woods
by Ernest Thompson Seton
from Skyhorse Publishing
for 3rd-6th grade
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
$7.50 (1 in stock)
Snowbound
from Holiday House
in Titanic & 20th Century Disasters (Location: HISV-20DIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Survival
Usborne Beginners Plus
by Henry Brook
from Usborne
for 3rd-6th grade
in Usborne Beginners (Location: SCI-USBREA)
Swiss Family Robinson
by Johann David Wyss, illustrated by Scott McKowen
from Sterling Publishing Co.
for 6th-9th grade
in Sterling Classics (Location: FIC-STE)
Swiss Family Robinson
Illustrated Junior Library Series 2
by Johann Wyss
from Grosset & Dunlap
for 4th-9th grade
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
Swiss Family Robinson
Illustrated Junior Library Series 1
by Johann Wyss
from Grosset & Dunlap
for 4th-9th grade
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
Swiss Family Robinson
by Johann Wyss, Illustrated by T.H. Robinson
from Barnes & Noble
for 4th-9th grade
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
Swiss Family Robinson
Illustrated Junior Library Series 2
by Johann Wyss
from Grosset & Dunlap
for 4th-9th grade
in Illustrated Junior Library (Location: VIN-IJL)
Swiss Family Robinson
by Johann Wyss, illustrated by David Gentleman
from Heritage Press
for 4th-9th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Swiss Family Robinson
by Johann Wyss
ca 1920 from Hurst Publishing
for 4th-9th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$8.50 (1 in stock)
Tales of Real Survival
Usborne Reader's Library
by Paul Dowswell
from Usborne
for 6th-12th grade
in Modern History (Location: HISW-MOD)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
The Martian
by Andy Weir
Reprint from Broadway Books
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$17.00
Three Months Under the Snow
by J. J. Porchat
from Inheritance Publications
Realistic Fiction for 3rd-6th grade
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
$9.95
Three Months Under the Snow
by J. J. Porchat
from Prism Productions
Realistic Fiction for 3rd-6th grade
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Two Little Savages
by Ernest Thompson Seton
from Grosset & Dunlap
for 5th-8th grade
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Walkabout
by James Marshall
reprint from Puffin Books
for 6th-10th grade
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Walkabout
by James Marshall
from New York Review of Books
for 7th-10th grade
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
$12.99
Week in the Woods
by Andrew Clements
from Scholastic Inc.
for 4th-6th grade
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Who Was Ernest Shackleton?
by James Buckley
from Grosset & Dunlap
for 3rd-6th grade
in Who Was? biographies (Location: BIO-WHO)
$5.99
Winterbound
by Margery Williams Bianco, Illustrated by Kate Seredy
Reprint from Dover Publications
for 4th-7th grade
1937 Newbery Honor Book
in Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
$5.99
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