Survival

Emperors of the Ice: A True Story of Disaster and Survival in the Antarctic, 1910-13

Apsley George Benet Cherry-Garrard has always dreamt of becoming an explorer. So in the spring of 1910, when Captain Robert Falcon Scott offers young “Cherry” the position of Assistant Zoologist aboard the Terra Nova, Cherry considers himself the luckiest man alive. Cherry’s luck, however, will soon change. Far off in the icy unknown of Antarctica, where temperatures plummet below –77°F, exploration is synonymous with a struggle for life. Frostbite, scurvy, hidden ice chasms, and packs of hungry killer whales are very real dangers. But even these perils don’t prepare Cherry for the expedition he and two other crew members embark upon to collect the eggs of Emperor penguins. Along the way, he will face the elements head-on, risking life and limb in the name of science. Rife with captivating details of survival in an icy wilderness, and illustrated with dozens of photographs from the actual journey, this reimagining of the famous 1910 expedition to the South Pole, told in Cherry’s voice, is an unforgettable tale of courage and camaraderie.

Against the Storm

When Mehmet and his family leave their small Turkish village to seek a better life in Ankara, they find themselves living in poverty, but an encounter with a streetwise orphan and his own determination give Mehmet the courage to find a way out.

Red Midnight

When guerrilla soldiers strike Santiago’s village, they shoot at everyone in their path. Dos Vías is on fire, and the night glows red. “Take the cayuco and sail to the United States of America. Now go!” Santiago’s uncle Ramos tells him, and Santiago, twelve, and his four-year-old sister, Angelina, flee.

With a map, a machete, and very little food, Santiago and Angelina set sail in their uncle Ramos’s sea kayak, built for just such an escape, but not for a sailor who is only a boy. Santiago heads for the United States on a voyage that will take them through narrow channels guarded by soldiers, shark, infested waters, and days of painful heat and raging storms. Santiago knows that he and Angelina probably will die trying to make the voyage, but they certainly will die at the hands of rebels or government soldiers if they do not try.

The Circuit

“‘La frontera’…I heard it for the first time back in the late 1940s when Papa and Mama told me and Roberto, my older brother, that someday we would take a long trip north, cross la frontera, enter California, and leave our poverty behind.” So begins this honest and powerful account of a family’s journey to the fields of California — to a life of constant moving, from strawberry fields to cotton fields, from tent cities to one-room shacks, from picking grapes to topping carrots and thinning lettuce. Seen through the eyes of a boy who longs for an education and the right to call one palce home, this is a story of survival, faith, and hope. It is a journey that will open readers’ hearts and minds.

La Línea

When fifteen-year-old Miguel’s time finally comes to leave his poor Mexican village, cross the border without getting caught, and join his parents in California, his younger sister’s determination to join him imperils them both.

Take a closer look at La Línea as examined in WOW Review.

Elephant Run

In 1941, bombs drop from the night skies of London, demolishing the apartment Nick Freestone lives in with his mother. Deciding the situation in England is too unstable, Nick’s mother sends him to live with his father in Burma, hoping he will be safer living on the family’s teak plantation. But as soon as Nick arrives, trouble erupts in this remote Burmese elephant village. Japanese soldiers invade, and Nick’s father is taken prisoner. Nick is stranded on the plantation, forced to work as a servant to the new rulers. As life in the village grows more dangerous for Nick and his young friend, Mya, they plan their daring escape. Setting off on elephant back, they will risk their lives to save Nick’s father and Mya’s brother from a Japanese POW camp. In this thrilling journey through the jungles of Burma, Roland Smith explores the far-reaching effects of World War II, while introducing readers to the fascinating world of wild timber elephants and their mahouts.

Darkwing

As the sun sets on the time of the dinosaurs, a new world is left in its wake. Dusk alone can fly and see in the dark, in a colony where being different means being shunned—or worse. As the leader’s son, he is protected, but does his future lie among his kin? Carnassial has the true instincts of a predator, and he is determined that his kind will not only survive but will dominate the world of beasts. An extraordinary adventure set 65 million years ago in a breathtaking animal tale that reaches out to the human in all of us.

Daylight Runner

Asking questions in Ash Harbor can get you killed. Sol Wheat is asking a lot of questions . . . especially after his father vanishes and is accused of murder. Outside the huge domed city, an Ice Age has transformed Earth into an Arctic desert. But inside, the Machine, protected by the Clockworkers—a fearsome police organization—has become the source of the city’s energy and a way for industrial leaders to wield enormous power. When a rogue organization begins posting messages warning of the Machine’s impending failure, civil unrest grows. As Sol begins to uncover the city’s deepest secrets, the Clockworkers start targeting him. Now he’s on the run in Ash Harbor’s underground, where gangs rule and danger lurks in every corner. His life and the survival of Ash Harbor are both at risk. In Oisín McGann’s thrilling adventure, only the truth can help Sol Wheat escape the darkness.

Night

A candid, horrific, and deeply poignant autobiographical account of survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps. This new translation by Marion Wiesel, Elie’s wife and frequent translator, presents this seminal memoir in the language and spirit truest to the author’s original intent. And in a substantive new preface, Elie reflects on the enduring importance of Night and his lifelong, passionate dedication to ensuring that the world never forgets our capacity for inhumanity. More than a litany of the daily terrors, everyday perversions, and rampant sadism at Auschwitz and Buchenwald, this memoir addresses many of the philosophical as well as personal questions implicit in any serious consideration of what the Holocaust was, what it meant, and what its legacy is and will be.