3 survival stories to read if you loved The Skeleton Tree
CBC Books | CBC | Posted: November 17, 2017 3:33 PM | Last Updated: November 22, 2017
Iain Lawrence's YA novel The Skeleton Tree focuses on the prickly relationship between a pair of boys stranded in the Alaskan wilderness after a deadly shipwreck. A finalist for the 2017 TD Canadian Children's Literature Award, the book is a fresh take on some themes that have long been taken up in literature.
Here are three more Canadian young adult survival stories to read if you loved The Skeleton Tree.
1. Susanna Moodie: Roughing It in the Bush
The graphic novel Susanna Moodie: Roughing It in the Bush is the result of a long collaboration between the late Carol Shields, filmmaker Patrick Crowe and illustrator Selena Goulding. Crowe met Shields in 1994, when he was interviewing her for a documentary about Susanna Moodie. Together, the pair adapted Moodie's own 1852 memoir Roughing It in the Bush, an account of the British settler's experiences living in the woods of Upper Canada.
Their intention was originally to create a film script based on Moodie's memoir but after Shields' death in 2003, Crowe and Goulding transformed the story into a graphic novel instead.
2. The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline
This harrowing tale of survival takes place in a world all but destroyed by climate change. Cherie Dimaline's award-winning novel The Marrow Thieves focuses on a group of Indigenous people on the run in the woods. With an epidemic of dreamlessness sweeping land they are being hunted for their bone marrow, which is believed to restore dreams.
The Marrow Thieves is a futuristic look at what survival might entail in the wake of environmental destruction and resurging colonialism.
3. The Island trilogy by Gordon Korman
A prolific author of kids' lit, Gordon Korman got his start with This Can't Be Happening at Macdonald Hall when he was just 12 years old. He has since written more than 80 books for young readers. His Island trilogy — Shipwreck, Survival and Escape — tells the story of six kids who never wanted to board a boat in the first place, and find themselves on a quest for survival with no adults in sight.
In this story of deserted islands, unexpected enemies and dangers none of them could have anticipated, Luke, Charla, Will, Lyssa, J.J. and Ian must find a way to survive and to get back home.