Keeping Hope Alive: 11 Thrilling YA Survival Stories

While many YA survival stories are fiction or fictionalized stories of historical people, I wanted to include some nonfiction accounts of survival situations as well. Amra Sabic-El-Rayess faced persecution as a Muslim in Bosnia in the 1990s. This graphic memoir chronicles the siege on her home city of Bihac, when friends turned to enemies and death was omnipresent. Yes, the story includes a cat. For those tentative about such things, the cat does not explicitly die in the book, but she is delivered to a safe countryside village to live out her life.

Can a novel in verse give you nightmares? This one did for me! That’s a high mark of praise for someone who considers herself fairly unflappable in the face of gore. But there really is something about the Donner party that continues to fascinate readers. This is a fictionalized version of the story of a historical survivor of that ill-fated expedition. It’s an immersive and detailed novel following the group of people whose attempt to cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains had dire consequences.

While plenty of YA survival stories feature situations that unfold over days, months, or years, this fast-paced book brings two unlikely characters together to survive a single night. After a race riot erupts at a high school football game, things quickly become chaotic and potentially deadly. Lena is a Black girl; Campbell is white and the new girl at her majority-Black school. The two are not friends, but they must learn to rely on each other to make it back to safety. It’s a timely book that can definitely inspire conversations about race in the United States.

Damselfly…Lord of the Flies… get it? This book is indeed an updated take on the classic survival tale. In it, a girls’ fencing team survives a plane crash onto a deserted tropical island. This book incorporates gender, class, race, and ability into the narrative more explicitly than its forebear did, and is a gripping read. Like, is this island possessed? You know that a book that starts with the protagonist waking up with an eyeball in her hand is really going for it.

Remember how Luke Skywalker had to sleep inside the tauntaun (RIP tauntaun) to survive on Hoth? If you think of that scene fondly, here’s the book for you: a survival tale set on an ice planet. Pitched as Wild Fang meets Red Riding Hood, this book explores the bond between Sena and her prize fighting wolf Iska. The two of them are trying to bring a team of scientists across the tundra in a sled race. Sena never wanted to participate in this race, but she will for the chance to leave her hostile planet. This is one for everyone who loves profound human-animal connections.

If you’ve read any Mindy McGinnis novels, you know the keyword is INTENSITY. In the wilderness, one foolish decision can be the difference between life and death. Ashley makes a doozy of a blunder, running into the forest when she catches her boyfriend cheating on her. She’s barefoot, without any supplies, and then she falls in a ravine. Girl can’t catch a break! With infection creeping up her leg, can she make it back to humanity, or will the woods take her for good?

The author of this harrowing book is a journalist who has covered the war in Syria that began in 2011. She followed the lives of two pairs of sisters on opposite sides of the conflict, showing what it’s really like for young people to survive war day in and day out. This book provides nuanced stories that will enhance readers’ understanding of this tragic conflict. And it beautifully depicts that spark of hope that can remain lit inside young people enduring unthinkable violence.