I am now working as Asst High School Librarian / Media Specialist. Our librarian has purchased a few Outdoor related books. However, when I have directed some of our boys to them, they come back in a few days. Mostly unread. When I ask how they like the books, the couple responses have mostly been tepid. Not enough suspense / drama, etc.

What books would the 'Fire recommend for outdoor reading that would engage, captivate High School age students, particularly boys, to keep them reading?

I know that I read and enjoyed the Capstick "Death" series a couple times through before I passed my copies along to a young man in our church. I did manage to get one young man read through a book on Shackleton's journey on the Endurance. Any other suggestions of books to engage younger readers on outdoor topics. Fiction or preferably non-fiction?

As a former teen reader, I read a lot of Science Fiction/Fantasy. Swiss Family Robinson could be a good fit. It's an older classic.

David Eddings "Pawn of Prophesy" was a favorite.
Isaac Asimov "I Robot" was good. It was made into a movie that didn't follow the book at all. Maybe have them compare the two.
Lawrence Watt-Evans "Misenchanted Sword" is a fun read.
JRR Tolkein has stood the test of time with boys of all ages.
Tom Clancy's early stuff is excellent.
Clive Cussler's work is known to be adventure and lost treasure based.
Andy Weir "The Martian" is both a good book and movie.

If your school hasn't banned it, Ayn Rand has "Fountainhead".
John Wesley Rawles "Patriots" will get you fired from your job.

Books by Col. Jim Corbett. Maneaters of Kumaon is a good start, but he wrote a good bit on less grim topics as well. An amazing character, and a genuine hero to the people of that region of India.

I recently started getting Sports Afield magazine, and it’s just excellent. No chest-thumping or back-slapping Bubba antics, just great stories and pics, with a lot of content on conservation and history and classic stories from the past too. Nothing I‘ve seen recently puts what we do in a better light.

Cj box Joe Pickett series.

Outdoors.
Suspense.
Well written.

Part of the problem is, as you stated, there just isn't enough suspense and drama. Most kids have grown up watching media that has everything turned up to Eleven. That stuff also keeps them out of the field, where they'd be learning that a 4-hour wait for a gobbler to show can be riveting or how a snapping twig on the Deer Opener can be electric.

My sons have friends. They're all 20-somethings, and they like to camp and shoot at our place in KY. Most can stomach a 2-day campout, but in several years of trying, they finally convinced one friend to come hunting with them. None, repeat none, of these kids had any exposure to the outdoors as kids. Some have expressed an interest, but are completely ill-informed and ill-prepared. They just don't get it.



BTW: I tried this kind of fiction about 5 years ago. My humble recommendation:

The Glenfield

STALIN....to let them know what they'll be facing...now and later!!

lew and charlie

Hemingway's short stories are (and were) my favorite as a young man. Mirrored my own trips in the woods. Hiking, camping, fishing, skiing.

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-complete-short-stories-of-ernest-hemingway_ernest-hemingway/252073/item/10214500/?mkwid=nNQcndKL%7cdm&pcrid=11558858482&pkw=&pmt=be&slid=&product=10214500&plc=&pgrid=3970769556&ptaid=pla-1101002859750&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Bing+Shopping+%7c+Literature+&+Fiction&utm_term=&utm_content=nNQcndKL%7cdm%7cpcrid%7c11558858482%7cpkw%7c%7cpmt%7cbe%7cproduct%7c10214500%7cslid%7c%7cpgrid%7c3970769556%7cptaid%7cpla-1101002859750%7c&msclkid=d85cb7d5f1d4146566acd75f6c19b1c0#idiq=10214500&edition=2501761

In to Thin Air - about the fatal Everest episode.

and

Into the Wild - about Christopher McCandless who starved to death in Alaska.

both by Jon Krakauer.

I hate that entire story.

I'm truly happy I never read anything like it as a youth.
It easily could have changed my desires to explore wild areas.

McCandless was nothing but a suicidal, know nothing problemed punk.

Ruarks The Old Man and the Boy is a classic. Right there with Tom Sawyer and Huck IMO. Not sure if today’s youth have the temperament to read anything good.

+1

So that’s a “no” then.

LOL

I enjoyed all of Capstick’s stuff as a kid.

Hemingway’s Green Hills of Africa too.

Unfortunately, you face a real battle. Kids don't read much anymore from what I see. Just like what TV probably did 60 years ago to reading, social media is doing now. Oh sure, kids read, they just don't read books. Same goes for adults though too. Phones, Youtube, and the internet have replaced turning pages in a book.

I agree.

That’s the last book I’d recommend to a kid. Dumbest story ever told.

I don’t think you’re such a dim-witted snowflake that McCandles’s story woulda deterred you from anything. Might have told you what not to do tho.

Just keep the kids books inspirational.

Hey you read my mind!

You know what they say about great minds.

There are few books that will eclipse the story and writing of Mark Twain and “Huckleberry Finn”

River of Doubt-T Roosevelt's expedition in South America

Lost in the Wild 2 stories of being lost in/near the Boundry Waters in Minnesota

The Last Season Another true account of a ranger working in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park(s)

They always include a huge COCK?

The Old Man and The Boy by Robert Ruark. Reminds me of my days as a kid hunting and fishing.

The Witchery of Archery.

I'd recommend books authored by Dr. Don Coldsmith: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Coldsmith

Or, maybe it just means neither of us thoroughly read OP's.

He stated he already had The Endurance in the first post.

The OP was talking high school kids here. The ones smart enough to actually sit down and read a book don’t gotta be spoon fed.

McCandles’s story would resonate with many.

Not that there’s anything wrong with inspirational 🙂

There was a Navy SEAL autobio that came out not too long ago, can’t recall the name, the one where the guy got into boxing in college, IIRC had strong religious principle too, there’s enough overlap between Military and outdoors it would apply.

If only the book had been presented as a "what not to do guide".

BTW,
Ever since you posted about the birds/storm/off track thing.

We've been seeing moderate numbers of small song birds showing up here on Floridas Nature Coast.

They are coming in hungry, they are at my feeders all hours of the night, must of been on the no frills flights.

Joe and Me by James Prosek. The Fragrance of Grass by Guy de la Valdene. As earlier mentioned, The Old Man and the Boy; The Old Man's Boy Grows Older should be included as well. There are others, but I need to look at my bookshelves to jog my mind more.

See i was thinking along the line of how to books..... like c4, napalm, basic chainsaw mechanics. Ya know normal stuff.

http://www.wildturkeys.com/about.html

Jeff....

Windy.com rocks.

It shows birds taking the island route around the Gulf woulda had strong Southeast tailwinds nudging them airborne, combined with moderate northeast winds over the Nature Coast slowing up birds looking to make landfall where you’re at. That’s my best guess.

Birdcast is predicting a pretty good push over your area tonight...

https://birdcast.info/

...but Windy predicts mild SW tailwinds or calm tonight where you’re at. Birds making landfall generally try to get some distance inland if they can, so the fallout effect isn’t near as dramatic.

Oops.

Lol

Old Man and a Boy and the sequel, Old Man's Boy Grows Older, Ruark
Hemingway's "Nick Adams" stories

These are worth reading, but I have to interject that I don't think much of Hemingway or Ruark as men. Hemingway was a moral catastrophe and a first rate ass. Ruark wanted to be just like him. I'd still suggest reading their stuff, but not to have any foolish romantic notions about their character.

Besides his severe deficit in character, Hemingway was a Communist sympathizer and blatant leftist.

I'd recommend the following books for readers younger than high school, and I think there are a lot of high-schoolers that have not read them and should. If they're easier to read, there's even more reason to do so.

My Side of the Mountain
Hatchet
Call of the Wild
White Fang
Where the Red Fern Grows
Old Yeller
Sounder
Sign of the Beaver
Little House in the Big Woods
Touching the Void

If you can get the uncensored 1928 versions of the Hardy Boys, those are pretty good reads. The most outdoorsy would be The Missing Chums and Hunting for Hidden Gold. The 1950's censored versions, forget it.

There are a few more good reads that are "outdoors" but at sea. I feel like that's a whole other genre.

It should be understood that for most of the last century, publishers, like the press, have been mostly dominated and controlled by those with a liberal ideology, particularly the kind of mainstream publishers whose books win awards from public librarian associations (Newberry) and gain acceptance rather than censorship and banning in public schools. Those are the books that have been publishers' bread and butter in this (K-12) market. Books with opposing ideologies that will be rejected for that reason have simply not been published. More recently, publishing technology has allowed for a greater diversity in available material, but like the music, movie and media industries, the market is still very biased.

I already mentioned Hemingway's Communist and Leftist ideals
Jack London was a Socialist
Gary Paulsen is white and male and attempted to atone for this transgression by promoting the LGBTQ agenda (The Car). Does the Lawn Boy (Capitalism 101) series make up for it? Obviously, Gary knows how to play the game he's in, a game that's run by publishers trying to profit from a public school and library market with a heavy liberal bend.

Nearly all the other books in my list have some appeal in feminism, racial justice, or another liberal cause. But hey, I wasn't the first one here to recommend most of them. What can you do? Read what you will, but don't necessarily believe it all.

Treasury of Outdoor Life is a good collection of old magazine articles that might be of interest. I gave my copy to my 12 year old nephew.

Bob, Son of Battle.

Canoeing with the Cree.

Eric Sevareid

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/106672.Canoeing_with_the_Cree

Moutaineering The Freedom of the Hills

The Revenge of Geography and Earning the Rockies by Robert D Kaplan

Ruark's Something of Value. This one will test your school's tolerance level

Alaska's Wolfman by Reardon


mike r

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnel_in_the_Sky

Tunnel in the Sky is a juvenile science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, published in 1955 by Scribner's as one of the Heinlein juveniles. The story describes a group of students sent on a survival test to an uninhabited planet, who soon realise they are stranded there. The themes of the work include the difficulties of growing up and the nature of man as a social animal.

Plot summary
The novel is set in the future, when Malthusian overpopulation on Earth has been averted by the invention of teleportation, called the "Ramsbotham jump," which is used to send Earth's excess population to colonize other planets. However, the costs of operating the device mean that the colonies are isolated from Earth until they can produce something to justify two-way trade. Because modern technology requires a supporting infrastructure, the colonists employ technology from the frontier era (such as horses instead of tractors).

Rod Walker is a high school student who dreams of becoming a professional colonist. The final test of his Advanced Survival class is to stay alive on an unfamiliar planet for between two and ten days. Students may team up and equip themselves with whatever gear they can carry, but they are otherwise completely on their own. They are told only that the challenges are neither insurmountable nor unreasonable. On test day, students walk through the Ramsbotham portal and find themselves alone on a strange planet, but reasonably close to the pickup point. Rod, acting on his older sister's advice, takes hunting knives and basic survival gear, rather than high-tech weaponry, on the grounds that the latter could make him overconfident. The last advice that the students receive is to "watch out for stobor."

On the second day, Rod is ambushed and knocked unconscious by a thief. When he wakes up, all that he has left is a spare knife hidden under a bandage. In his desperate concentration on survival, he loses track of time. Eventually, he teams up with Jacqueline "Jack" Daudet, a student from another class whom he initially mistakes for a male. When she tells him that more than ten days have elapsed without contact, he realizes that something has gone wrong with the portal that was supposed to recover them and that they are stranded.

They start recruiting others to build a settlement for long term survival and Rod becomes the de facto leader of a community that eventually grows to around 75 people. Disagreements reveal the need to elect a government for the new town. Rod has no taste for politics or administration and is happy to have Grant Cowper, an older college student and born politician, elected mayor. Grant proves to be much better at talking than at getting things done. Despite disagreeing with many of Grant's policies, Rod supports him. Grant ignores Rod's warning that they are living in a dangerously hard-to-defend location and that they should move to a cave system that he has found. When a species that had been thought to be harmless suddenly changes its behavior and stampedes through their camp, the settlement is devastated and Grant is killed. Rod is put back in charge.

Heinlein tracks the social development of the frontier community of educated Westerners deprived of technology, followed by its abrupt dissolution when contact with Earth is reestablished. After nearly two years of isolation, the culture shock experienced by the survivors highlights for them and the reader the pain and uncertainty of becoming an adult by reversing the process abruptly. Each of the students returns from being a self-responsible member of an autonomous community to being regarded as a youth.

All of the students go back to Earth willingly except for Rod, who has great difficulty reverting from the status of head of a small but sovereign state to a teenager, who is casually brushed aside by the adult rescuers. However, his teacher (and now brother-in-law) and his sister persuade him to change his mind. His teacher also informs Rod that his warning against "stobor" ("robots" spelled backwards) was just a way of personalizing the dangers of an unknown planet to instill fear and caution in the students, as all students receive the same warning, regardless of the planet they are sent to for the final exam.

Years later, Rod is briefly depicted accomplishing his heart's desire. The novel's ending finds him preparing to lead a formal colonization party to another planet.

^ This book is a must read for all young men

Also add the following:

Blood & Thunder by Hampton Sides (biography of Kit Carson)

Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield (about the Spartans at Thermopolae)

Anything by Louis L'Amour

Yes. Anything by Jack London.

I agree about Into Thin Air. But disagree about Into the Wild (I think it's a downer because he was so tortured)

-148° (about the first winter ascent of Mount McKinley)

The Old Man and the Boy by Ruark as so many others here have recommended.

This should be in every outdoorsman's library. I like short stories and find them easy to read. Among my other favorites are the adventure stories by Ben East. He put together several books of survival adventures that I really like. My very favorites are the Stories of the Old Duck Hunters books by the late Gordon MacQuarrie. His writings have been put into three volumes and I treasure each of them. With geezerhood fast approaching for me, I do not know if any of these would interest young people today. I'd like to think they would.

Appreciate all of the suggestions. I sent a list to my upline to review and act on if we have funds remaining. As some have mentioned, the books proposed and incentivized by the publishers tend to be from left to FAR left. Trying to add a little balance for our mostly rural, still mostly conservative population. Again, Thank you for your input !

Big +1

Nothing Like it in The World
The men who built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869
Stephen Ambrose

Unrepentant Sinner , Col. askins, and The Revenant by Michael Punke

KJV Is for Today.

https://www.kjvtoday.com/home#TOC-The-King-James-Version-is-Demonstra

Every student at every age will benefit from reading the Bible as a daily habit. Don't get them the dumbed down teenage, contemporary paraphrases. They should start and continue on the KJV labeled 1611 Authorized Version.

That's the best gift a parent can impart to a child or teen, along with the gift in the links below.
BTW, The second one is in a foreign school.

Moby Dick Herman Melville
Captains Courageous Rudyard Kipling
Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck
Kon-Tiki Thor Heyerdahl

One of my favorites the last few years.

Capsticks books were excellent. Been too many years since I've read them.

Orion,

If they don't think that the Bible is good outdoor adventure wilderness reading, remind them of the following.

John the Baptist started a church in the wilderness.
He looked just like you'd expect a mountain man to look like. He had a camel hide coat.
They didn't pay that country preacher.
He ate bugs and had to rob honey bee hives for food.
He preached power to authority and the king chopped his head clean off of his shoulders.
Jesus wouldn't give that king the time of day after doing that to his friend.
.......
Next....

Great Surveys of the American West Richard A Bartlett
Source of the River Jack Nisbet
Tracking David Thompson across western North America

Did I miss it ?? Anything by Robert Heinlein. I was a science fiction nut as a youth. Isaac Asimov and Robert were pretty good writers. And, Who goes there ? A short science fiction story. sorry, I don't remember the author. It was done as a movie about 20 years ago with Kurt Russel. It was a pretty good remake.

kwg

The Bible is full of true stories of great men of God, rough mountain men that travelled through desert land and were full of courage and the power of God .

Another example was Elisha.
Teenagers and, yea, even some of the God hating reprobates would do well to take heed of 2 Kings 2.
He was a preacher starting an important journey to do the Lord's will. Next thing you know, the kids, likely those of the false prophets, followed him and mocked the man of God. This is what happened...

23
"And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.
And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them."

Now THAT would be something boys should read.

Did it have Lee Van Cleef in it too?
Did it remind you of an antia/blm event that Russel showed up at?

These are written at a middle school level, but I liked them. They will get checked out in a high school if boys still read in this generation.

https://www.christianbook.com/bible-wars-weapons-rick-osborne/9780310703235/pd/03239

This series is very interesting and has a male audience in mind. I enjoyed this one called Bible Wars and Weapons the most.
They are very reasonably priced and most should finish and return them in two weeks.

Robert E. Howard wrote a lot of pulp fiction and was considered the father of the Conan heroes.
He wrote some that might be out of print based on a hero named Solomon Kane. He was a Puritan who wasn't exactly a pure pascifist. He had adventures that would make Harold Potty go potty in his magical pants. The character hated witchcraft and injustices.
He was a good guy, but purely entertainment oriented.
Someone might steal it from the library, so get two copies of each volume if you go that route.

I don't want to send jeff beezos any business, but here's a sample.

https://www.amazon.com/Savage-Tales...mp;psc=1&refRID=Z1AY06DE70C1A2S4ZGR9

Politics aside, "Battlefield Earth" by L. Ron Hubbard is a long, long, epic story with plenty of action.

I enjoyed Piers Anthony's early stuff.

Martin L Shoemaker is a contemporary sci-fi writer. "Today I am Carey" and "The Last Dance" are simply outstanding.

"Old Man's War" by John Scalzi is very good.

"All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr won the Pulitzer...and deservedly so. Set in occupied Europe in WWII. Good read for either gender.

"Dune" by Frank Herbert is a classic for a reason.

So many good reads...so little time.

Undaunted Courage
Crazy Horse and Custer
Both by Steven Ambrose

William Clarke bio (not sure of author)

Endurance about the Shackleton expedition as mentioned earlier

When Hell was in Session by Jeremiah Denton

A Man on the Moon: One Giant Leap by Andrew Chakin

Any book about John Colter

Jim Bridger: The Grand Old Man of the Rockies

The Earth is Enough by Harry Middleton and The Education of Little Tree by Forrest Carter.

Heinrich Harrer

The White Spider

Seven Years in Tibet

He was a tough dude!

Osa Johnson's "I married adventure." A slow starter, but should appeal to both males and females. A young Kansas lady on safaris to Indonesia, New Guinea, and Africa.

I would add Havalla Babcock and Robert W. Service to the list

The Rivers Ran East by Leonard Clark!

We Pointed Them North
Recollections Of a Cowpuncher

By E.C. “Teddy Blue” Abbott and Helen Huntington Smith

Empire of the Summer Moon : Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History
by S.C. Gwynne

The operator’s manual to a 16” chainsaw or 20” pushmower would be a good start.

Minutes of the Lower Forty by Corey Ford

Well, since we’re going historical... a Rocky Mt fur trade era book....

Westering Man: The Life of Joseph Walker

Sand county Almanac

The one outdoors book I remember reading in high school was The Frontiersmen by Allan Eckert and it made a pretty big impression on me.

Any of Jack London. Kon Tiki.