Instead of being rescued from a plane crash, as in the author's book Hatchet, this story portrays what would have happened to Brian had he been forced to survive a winter in the wilderness with only his survival pack and hatchet

"The warrior cat Clans have enjoyed many moons of peace and prosperity--but a dark season approaches, and those days will soon be over. Guided by a mysterious vision, the young apprentice Alderpaw of ThunderClan must go on a dangerous journey...a journey that may be the Clans' only hope." --

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

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.

Far off the coast of California loos a harsh rock known as San Nicolas Island. Blue dolphins splash in the water surrounding it, sea otters play in the kelp beds, and seabirds roots in its crags. Once, Indians also lived on the island-until one day they decided to leave and sail east. A young girl was left behind. Karana is that girl. Year after year, she waits for the ship to come back. But it never does. Finally, she realizes she must make a fateful...

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.

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

"Lucky and the rest of the Leashed Dogs have settled in the forest--but a vicious Pack has claimed the land, and will stop at nothing to ensure that it is theirs alone"--

When sickness decimates his fishing camp, an orphan named Leif flees north in a cedar canoe, journeying along a brutal but beautiful coastline.

"The Wild Dogs' fierce Alpha reluctantly agrees to let the Leashed Dogs join their pack--but after learning of Lucky's role as a spy, Alpha casts him out of their camp and orders him to never return"--