Survivor Diaries 1 – Overboard!

Terry Lynn Johnson's Survivor Diaries Overboard is a survival adventure for 9 year olds about two kids thrown off a whale-watching boat into freezing sea.

What happens

Travis is eleven and on holiday in Washington State with his family. Seeing a whale is the thing he's been looking forward to most. His mum makes him wear a bulky red survival suit on the boat, which is SO embarrassing (and turns out to matter more than anyone could have guessed).

He gets chatting to Marina, the captain's twelve-year-old daughter. She knows everything about the sea and makes sure he knows it.

Then, while nearly everyone is crowded on one side of the boat watching orcas, a huge wave hits. The boat flips over.

Travis and Marina come up in the water, a long way from the life raft. Marina's wrist is broken. All they've got is a piece of plywood to cling to.

The whole story is Travis telling a reporter what happened, months later. So you know from the very first page that he made it home. That's actually really reassuring, because the middle is tense!

It's packed with proper survival know-how, all woven into the story. Why you keep your knees tucked up in cold water. How to make a fire without matches. How to get drinking water out of dew and a plastic bag. Travis works a lot of it out himself, and you can feel how proud he is when it works.

He has his own worries too. Since a nasty fall in gymnastics he's been scared of heights. And the one way to get help means climbing a very tall tree.

A harbour seal keeps popping up beside them in the water, and Travis calls her Selkie. She's a lovely touch.

It's worth being aware that for a big chunk of the book Travis doesn't know if his mum, dad and sister got into the life raft. Marina talks quite a lot about how long they've got before the cold gets them. If your child is anxious about boats or deep water, that could be a lot.

For a reader who loves real-life-feeling adventures, though, it's gripping. They might even come away knowing what to do if they fell in cold water.

What to read next

If this one grips them, there's another survivor's interview and a mountain of snow in Avalanche! Twins Ashley and Ryan are skiing in Wyoming when the whole slope starts to move.