{"id":596,"date":"2010-01-25T08:10:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-25T08:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbicmsblog.reedbusiness.com\/elogic_660000266\/2010\/01\/25\/surviving-winter\/"},"modified":"2010-01-25T08:10:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-25T08:10:00","slug":"surviving-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=596","title":{"rendered":"Surviving Winter"},"content":{"rendered":"

As winter really sets in, I find myself seeking out old favorites to read. Perhaps I’m odd, but I just love reading about people surviving harsh winters during the winter. I cozy up in my house in Vermont, dogs at my side, fleece blanket at the ready, and reach not for books about warmth, but for icy struggles of survival.
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Nothing is a better read than The Long Winter<\/em> by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The family struggles after a freak October snowstorm. Food stores are running low, it’s cold and it’s fraught. When Almanzo goes off in search of wheat (wow, not the food choice I’d go in seek of) it’s tense and we wonder what’s going to happen. I just love this book. It’s a great book for kids to get hooked on the adventure of the everyday, and to learn that winter wasn’t just something we had to wait through to get to spring.<\/p>\n

Hatchet<\/em> by Gary Paulsen is another class\"\"ic. There is nothing like a person alone, struggling to survive in a situation where he is ill-equiped and the odds are against him, that makes me stay in one place and read. Brian, of course, survives a plane crash in the Canadian wilderness with only his windbreaker and a hatchet. when I first read this book and it sequel, Brian’s Winter, during the our first winter of having this store. It was a slow February day and I started reading and was hooked immediately. Somehow, I’ll never forget the scene when it was 50 below zero and Brian’s urine freezes solid, in an arc when it leaves his body. Truly a classic that m\"\"akes you really appreciate hot toast, soup and a working heater.<\/p>\n

Will Hobbs’ F<\/em>ar North<\/em> provides a similar read. This time there are more people, but the conditions are just as brutal. Threats occur at every turn, be it from animals or weather. Gabe and his roommate, Raymond, have to work together to find a way to survive. The action never stops and, like Paulsen, Hobbs really makes the reader feel like she’s surviving along with the characters.
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There is a more recent book that fits the bill for survival, though it’s not technically set in winter. Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Life as We Knew It<\/em> is just as thrilling for a stormy winter night. Can Miranda’s family survive after a meteor hits the moon, and causes what amounts to nuclear winter without the bomb? When it came out in 2006 it was one of my favorite books and I was recommending it hand over fist.  The third book in the series, The World We Live<\/em> (due out in April) is just as good. I happily curled up on my couch last night wrapped in fleece and surrounded by warm dogs, and whipped through the galley. It is not technically a winter book, but it’s got all the element of survival books the I’ve come to need to read every winter.<\/p>\n

The last boo\"\"k of survival is an adult book that is very well suited to teenagers is again from Gary Paulsen. Winterdance<\/em>: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod<\/em>, is the story of Paulsen’s obsessive attempt at running the hardest sled dog race in the world. Part travelogue, part survival story, and generally hilarious, this book is among my all-time favorites. Paulsen approaches the Iditarod in much the same way I would, basically thinking it’s easier than it looks. Oh, not so fast. Paulsen pulls no punches, from the first day of training with his dogs in the woods and a car body which had Paulsen horizontal in the air, hitting every tree in the forest, the book is full of detailed, often painful examples of his preparation.   This race is hard, very hard, and Paulsen pulls no punches about his lack of experience. There are scenes which can still make laugh until I have tears in my eyes. His moments observing nature are stunningly done and stay with you long after the book’s done.<\/p>\n

So, stock up on some great reads and wait for a storm and read a book of other people surviving weather that have me weeping in a matter of moments. Grab a fleece blanket and read one of these books aloud. Nothing makes a survival story better than sharing it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As winter really sets in, I find myself seeking out old favorites to read. Perhaps I’m odd, but I just love reading about people surviving harsh winters during the winter. I cozy up in my house in Vermont, dogs at my side, fleece blanket at the ready, and reach not for books about warmth, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}