This booklist was contributed by Appleton Public Library Reference and Information Services Staff, 4/08
The rope trick(2002)Motivated by her quest to learn a legendary rope trick, the magician Princess Lidi and her troupe embark on a journey through Renaissance Italy that intertwines adventure, love, and mystery.
Apocalypse(2005)Fifteen-year-old Kit and his parents must ground their sinking sailboat on a rocky island inhabited by a primitive sect who believe the stranded family has been sent by the devil.
Blood gold(2004)After an arduous journey, Will Dwinelle and his friend Ben finally reach California in 1849 intending to bring home the man who betrayed the honor of a girl back home in Philadelphia, but find themselves tempted by the riches of the Gold Rush.
Hunter(2004)A Maori boy in 1803 and a plane crash survivor marooned on a deserted island in 2003 experience interconnecting visions.
Away to the goldfields!(2004)Yearning for adventure and tired of farm life in New Hampshire, sixteen-year-old Mary Margaret Malarkey journeys to California in 1848 to find her father who arrived earlier to make his fortune in the goldfields.
The kin(2003)It is two hundred thousand years ago. A small group of children are cut off from their Kin, the Moonhawks, when they are driven from their Good Place by violent strangers. While searching for a new Good Place, they face the parched desert, an active volcano, a canyon flood, man-eating lions, and other Kins they've never seen before. These young Moonhawks are brave, clever, and warmhearted, and all three traits are crucial to their survival. Told from four points-of-view, with tales of the Kins' creation interspersed throughout, this epic novel humanizes early man and illuminates the beginning of language, the development of skills, and the organization of society.
Overboard(2002)Escaping from a sinking ferry in the waters off Sumatra, fourteen-year-old Emily fights for survival for herself and a young Indonesian boy, who draws courage from his quiet but firm Islamic faith.
A girl named disaster(1996)While fleeing from Mozambique to Zimbabwe to escape an unwanted marriage, Nhamo, an eleven-year-old Shona girl, struggles to escape drowning and starvation and in so doing comes close to the luminous world of the African spirits.
The king in the window(2005)Eleven-year-old Oliver, an American boy residing in Paris, discovers, much to his astonishment, that phantoms live within the windowpanes and have selected Oliver to lead a war against the "soul-stealers" that inhabit mirrors.
Escape from memory(2003)Allowing herself to be hynotized, fifteen-year-old Kira reveals memories of another time and place that may eventually cost her and her mother their lives.
Jackie's Wild Seattle(2003)Fourteen-year-old Shannon and her little brother, Cody, spend the summer with their uncle, helping at a wildlife rescue center named Jacke's Wild Seattle.
Downriver(1991)Fifteen-year-old Jessie and the other rebellious teenage members of a wilderness survival school team abandon their adult leader, hijack his boats, and try to run the dangerous white water at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
Scrib(2005)In 1863, a sixteen-year-old boy nicknamed Scrib travels around the West making his living writing and delivering letters, an occupation that leads to him nearly getting killed, being jailed as a criminal, joining up with the notorious Crazy James Kincaid, and delivering a letter from President Abraham Lincoln to a Paiute Indian.
Bone dry(2002)In the 1840s, Dr. Asa B. Cornwall, a phrenologist, and his fourteen-year-old assistant, Matthew Morrissey, travel from Paris to Northern Africa to seek the missing skull of Alexander the Great.
The killing sea(2006)In the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami in Sumatra, two teenagers, American Sarah and Acehnese Ruslan, meet and continue together their arduous climb inland, where Ruslan hopes to find his father and Sarah seeks a doctor for her brother.
Fish(2004)As fighting closes in on the village where Tiger's parents have been working, the three of them and a mysterious guide set out on a difficult journey to safety.
Shackleton's stowaway(2005)A fictionalized account of the adventures of eighteen-year-old Perce Blackborow, who stowed away for the 1914 Shackleton Antarctic expedition and, after their ship Endurance was crushed by ice, endured many hardships, including the loss of the toes of his left foot to frostbite, during the nearly two-year return journey across sea and ice. On October 26, 1914, Ernest Shackleton₂s Endurance set sail from Buenos Aires in pursuit of the last unclaimed prize in exploration: the crossing of the Antarctic continent. The crew stood on deck to watch the city fade away. All but one. Eighteen-year-old Perce Blackborow hid below in a locker. But the thrill of stowing away with the legendary explorer would soon turn to fear. Within months, the Endurance, trapped and crushed by ice, sank. And even Perce, the youngest member of the stranded crew, knew there was no hope of rescue. If the men were to survive in the most hostile place on earth, they would have to do it on their own. Victoria McKernan deftly weaves the hard-to-fathom facts of this famous voyage into an epic, edge-of-your-seat survival novel.
Red midnight(2003)After soldiers kill his family, twelve-year-old Santiago and his four-year-old sister Angelina flee Guatemala in a kayak, trying to reach the United States.
Pirates! : the true and remarkable adventures of Minerva Sharpe and Nancy Kington, female pirates(2003)In 1722, after arriving with her brother at the family's Jamaican plantation where she is to be married off, sixteen-year-old Nancy Kington escapes with her slave friend, Minerva Sharpe, and together they become pirates traveling the world in search of treasure.
The trap(2006)In alternating chapters, seventeen-year-old Johnny Least-Weasel, who is better known for brains than brawn, worries about his missing grandfather, and the grandfather, Albert Least-Weasel, struggles to survive, caught in his own steel trap in the Alaskan winter.
Red Sea(2005)
The king of Attolia(2006)Eugenides, still known as a Thief of Eddis, faces palace intrigue and assassins as he strives to prove himself both to the people of Attolia and to his new bride, their queen.
The thief(1998)Gen flaunts his ingenuity as a thief and relishes the adventure which takes him to a remote temple of the gods where he will attempt to steal a precious stone.
Memory boy : a novel(2001)Sixteen-year-old Miles and his family must flee their Minneapolis home and begin a new life in the wilderness after a chain of cataclysmic volcanic explosions creates dangerous conditions in their city.
Surviving Antarctica : reality TV 2083(2005)In the year 2083, five fourteen-year-olds who were deprived by chance of the opportunity to continue their educations reenact Scott's 1910-1913 expedition to the South Pole as contestants on a reality television show, secretly aided by a Department of Entertainment employee.
Peak survival(2004)Jake, Peter and Moses are looking forward to heli-skiing and snowboarding in the backcountry, but just after they are dropped off a helicopter crashes. It's up to them to rescue any survivors.
Hunchback(2004)Thirteen-year-old Juffa, a hunchback orphan living in Castle Marlby, dreams of serving a prince, and when his wish comes true he becomes embroiled in adventure and intrigue.
The extraordinary adventures of Alfred Kropp(2005)Through a series of dangerous and violent misadventures, teenage loser Alfred Kropp rescues King Arthur's legendary sword Excalibur from the forces of evil.