Book List: The Great Outdoors

  {from Destination 360}

So it's that time of year. THE SNOW IS MELTING! I don't know about you guys, but I have been absolutely itching to be outside. I want to go hiking and camping and canoeing and bird watching and, well.. pretty much anything as long as it involves sunshine and trees. So to assuage my overwhelming desire to slosh through what's left of the snow so I can get my fix, I have made up a young adult book list dedicated to all things "the great outdoors." So if you have also been itching to get outside, you can pick up one of these books to keep you busy while the rest of the snow actually melts:


Sammy Keyes and the Wild Things by Wendelin Van Draanen
While on her first hiking and camping trip, thirteen-year-old Sammy tries to solve a mystery involving endangered condors while avoiding scorpions, ticks, and embarrassment.




They Never Came Home by Lois Duncan
Two teenage boys disappear while on a hiking trip in the mountains. 



 
My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
A young boy relates his adventures during the year he spends living alone in the Catskill Mountains including his struggle for survival, his dependence on nature, his animal friends, and his ultimate realization that he needs human companionship.


Woods Runner by Gary Paulsen
From his 1776 Pennsylvania homestead, thirteen-year-old Samuel, who is a highly-skilled woodsman, sets out toward New York City to rescue his parents from the band of British soldiers and Indians who kidnapped them after slaughtering most of their community.

Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead Speare
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.




Peak by Roland Smith
A fourteen-year-old boy attempts to be the youngest person to reach the top of Mount Everest.




Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
Records the courage and self-reliance of an Indian girl who lived alone for eighteen years on an isolated island off the California coast when her tribe emigrated and she was left behind.


Wild Man Island by Will Hobbs
After fourteen-year-old Andy slips away from his kayaking group to visit the wilderness site of his archaeologist father's death, a storm strands him on Admiralty Island, Alaska, where he manages to survive, encounters unexpected animal and human inhabitants, and looks for traces of the earliest prehistoric immigrants to America. 

 Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
After a plane crash, thirteen-year-old Brian spends fifty-four days in the wilderness, learning to survive initially with only the aid of a hatchet given him by his mother, and learning also to survive his parents' divorce.



So if you're looking for a bit of a break from the routine, you might want to consider reading some of our camping/hiking-related picks, all of which are available at the library.