Raising Readers
Adventure
Bad Beginning
Lemony Snicket
X Snicket
After the sudden death of their parents, the three Baudelaire children must depend on each other and their wits when it turns out that the distant relative who is appointed their guardian is determined to use any means necessary to get their fortune.
Call it Courage
Armstrong Sperry
NB Sperry
Based on a Polynesian legend, this is the story of a youth who overcomes his fear of the sea and proves his courage to himself and his tribe.
Call of the Wild
Jack London
X London
The adventures of an unusual dog, part St. Bernard, part Scotch shepherd, forcibly taken to the Klondike gold fields where he eventually becomes the leader of a wolf pack.
Crispin: The Cross of Lead
Avi
X Avi
Falsely accused of theft and murder, an orphaned peasant boy in fourteenth-century England flees his village and meets a larger-than-life juggler who holds a dangerous secret.
Hatchet
Gary Paulsen
NB Paulsen
After a plane crash, thirteen-year-old Brian spends fifty-four days in the wilderness, learning to survive with only the aid of a hatchet given him by his mother, and learning also to survive his parents' divorce.
Holes
Louis Sachar
NB Sachar
As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a tough correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.
Hoot
Carl Hiaasen
X Hiaasen
Hiaasen's wildly funny satire features the new kid, Roy, joining forces with tough Beatrice and the elusive Mullet Fingers to defeat a bully, thwart an avaricious corporation, and save a colony of burrowing owls. Hiaasen's work is both a rollicking adventure and a serious examination of values that threaten our environment.
James and the Giant Peach
Roald Dahl
X Dahl
Wonderful adventures abound after James escapes from his fearful aunts by rolling away inside a giant peach.
Julie of the Wolves
Jean Craighead George
NB George
While running away from home and an unwanted marriage, a thirteen-year-old Eskimo girl becomes lost on the North Slope of Alaska and is befriended by a wolf pack.
My Side of the Mountain
Jean Craighead George
NB George
Thirteen-year-old Sam Gribley, whose hero is Henry David Thoreau, packs up and leaves home for the Catskill Mountains and the challenge of wilderness living. He feeds himself, builds a makeshift home, and learns to live in harmony with nature.
Sign of the Beaver
Elizabeth George Speare
NB George
Left alone to guard the family's wilderness home in eighteenth-century Maine, a boy is hard-pressed to survive until local Indians teach him their skills.
Slave Dancer
Paula Fox
NB Fox
Kidnapped by the crew of an Africa-bound ship, a thirteen-year-old boy discovers to his horror that he is on a slaver and his job is to play music for the exercise periods of the human cargo.
Thief Lord
Cornelia Funke
X Funke
Two brothers, having run away from the aunt who plans to adopt the younger one, are sought by a detective hired by their aunt, but they have found shelter with--and protection from--Venice's "Thief Lord."
Whipping Boy
Sid Fleischman
NB Fleischman
A bratty prince and his whipping boy have many adventures when they inadvertently trade places after becoming involved with dangerous outlaws.
Zach's Lie
Roland Smith
X Smith
When Jack Osborne is befriended by his school's custodian and a Basque girl, he begins to adjust to his family's sudden move to Elko, Nevada, after entering the Witness Security Program, but the drug cartel against which his father will testify is determined to track them down.