The Best Action & Adventure Teen & Young Adult Books 2025

1. Deathwatch, (Paperback)

\"An exciting novel of suspense, based on a fight to the finish between an honest and courageous young man and a cynical business tycoon who believes that anything can be had for a price.\"--Horn Book. An ALA Best of the Best Books for Young Adults, Edgar Allan Poe Mystery Writers Award, A New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year, New York Public Library--Books for the Teen Age.

Deathwatch, (Paperback) Author: Laurel Leaf Library ISBN: 9780440917403 Format: Paperback Publication Date: 1973-10-15 Page Count: 224

2. Hatchet (Hardcover)

This award-winning contemporary classic is the survival story with which all others are compared--and a page-turning, heart-stopping adventure, recipient of the Newbery Honor. Hatchet has also been nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read. Thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson, haunted by his secret knowledge of his mother's infidelity, is traveling by single-engine plane to visit his father for the first time since the divorce. When the plane crashes, killing the pilot, the sole survivor is Brian. He is alone in the Canadian wilderness with nothing but his clothing, a tattered windbreaker, and the hatchet his mother had given him as a present. At first consumed by despair and self-pity, Brian slowly learns survival skills--how to make a shelter for himself, how to hunt and fish and forage for food, how to make a fire--and even finds the courage to start over from scratch when a tornado ravages his campsite. When Brian is finally rescued after fifty-four days in the wild, he emerges from his ordeal with new patience and maturity, and a greater understanding of himself and his parents.

This award-winning contemporary classic is the survival story with which all others are compared—and a page-turning, heart-stopping adventure, recipient of the Newbery Honor. Hatchet has also been nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read. Thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson, haunted by his secret knowledge of his mother’s infidelity, is traveling by single-engine plane to visit his father for the first time since the divorce. When the plane crashes, killing the pilot, the sole survivor is Brian. He is alone in the Canadian wilderness with nothing but his clothing, a tattered windbreaker, and the hatchet his mother had given him as a present. At first consumed by despair and self-pity, Brian slowly learns survival skills—how to make a shelter for himself, how to hunt and fish and forage for food, how to make a fire—and even finds the courage to start over from scratch when a tornado ravages his campsite. When Brian is finally rescued after fifty-four days in the wild, he emerges from his ordeal with new patience and maturity, and a greater understanding of himself and his parents.

3. Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, (Paperback)

Newbery Medal Winner Readers today are still fascinated by \"Nat,\" an eighteenth-century nautical wonder and mathematical wizard. Nathaniel Bowditch grew up in a sailor's world--Salem in the early days, when tall-masted ships from foreign ports crowded the wharves. But Nat didn't promise to have the makings of a sailor; he was too physically small. Nat may have been slight of build, but no one guessed that he had the persistence and determination to master sea navigation in the days when men sailed only by \"log, lead, and lookout.\" Nat's long hours of study and observation, collected in his famous work, The American Practical Navigator (also known as the \"Sailors' Bible\"), stunned the sailing community and made him a New England hero.

Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, (Paperback) Author: Clarion Books ISBN: 9780618250745 Format: Paperback Publication Date: 2003-05-19 Page Count: 256

4. Pre-Owned A Killing Frost

It's nearly six months since our country was invaded. We've lived in a war zone since January, and now it's July. So short a time, so long a time . . . I'm an expert on fear now. I think I've felt every strong feeling there is: love, hate, jealousy, rage. But fear's the greatest of them all. Nothing reaches inside and grabs you by the guts the way fear does. Nothing else possesses you like that. It's a kind of illness, a fever, that takes you over. Ellie and her friends return from a camping trip to find their country at war. Learning together, they fight back--battling fear, rage, and the invading army that has stolen their land, seized their homes, taken their families, and destroyed their future. Continuing the story begun in Tomorrow, When the War Began and The Dead of Night, John Marsden paints a shockingly realistic portrait of teenagers who take great risks to defend what is theirs.

Tomorrow A Killing Frost, (Hardcover) Author: Houghton Mifflin ISBN: 9780395837351 Format: Hardcover Publication Date: 1998-04-27 Page Count: 288

5. Dragon's Bait, (Paperback)

Fifteen-year-old Alys is not a witch. But that doesn't matter--the villagers think she is and have staked her out on a hillside as a sacrifice to the local dragon. It's late, it's cold, and it's raining, and Alys can think of only one thing--revenge. But first she's got to escape, and even if she does, how can one girl possibly take on an entire town alone? Then the dragon arrives--a dragon that could quite possibly be the perfect ally. . . .

Dragon's Bait, (Paperback) Author: Houghton Mifflin ISBN: 9780152166632 Format: Paperback Publication Date: 2003-04-01 Page Count: 208

6. Memory Boy

Details Coming Soon

Memory Boy

7. After the First Death, (Paperback)

Who will be the next to die? They've taken the children. And the son of a general. But that isn't enough. More horrors must come...

After the First Death, (Paperback) Author: Laurel Leaf Library ISBN: 9780440208358 Format: Paperback Publication Date: 1991-02-01 Page Count: 240

8. The Boat Who Wouldn't Float

9780553277883

The Boat Who Wouldn't Float

9. After the War (Paperback)

Didn't the gas ovens finish you all off? is the response that meets Ruth Mendenberg when she returns to her village in Poland after the liberation of Buchenwald at the end of World War II. Her entire family wiped out in the Holocaust, the fifteen-year-old girl has nowhere to go. Members of the underground organization Brichah find her, and she joins them in their dangerous quest to smuggle illegal immigrants to Palestine. Ruth risks her life to help lead a group of children on a daring journey over half a continent and across the sea to Eretz Israel, using secret routes and forged documents -- and sheer force of will. This adventure will touch readers, who will marvel at the resources and inner strength of mere children helping other children to find a place in this world in which they can belong. Carol Matas, one of the foremost authors of historical fiction, brings the desperation and passion of this remarkable journey to life.

"Didn't the gas ovens finish you all off?" is the response that meets Ruth Mendenberg when she returns to her village in Poland after the liberation of Buchenwald at the end of World War II. Her entire family wiped out in the Holocaust, the fifteen-year-old girl has nowhere to go. Members of the underground organization Brichah find her, and she joins them in their dangerous quest to smuggle illegal immigrants to Palestine. Ruth risks her life to help lead a group of children on a daring journey over half a continent and across the sea to Eretz Israel, using secret routes and forged documents -- and sheer force of will. This adventure will touch readers, who will marvel at the resources and inner strength of mere children helping other children to find a place in this world in which they can belong. Carol Matas, one of the foremost authors of historical fiction, brings the desperation and passion of this remarkable journey to life.

10. Orphan Train Adventures A Place to Belong, Book 04, (Paperback)

Danny and his younger sister, Peg, are placed in St. Joseph, Missouri, with kind Alfrid and Olga Swenson. Danny is thrilled to have a "real" father again, but when Olga suddenly dies, he is devastated--until he thinks of an ingenious plan to find Alfrid a new wife.

Orphan Train Adventures A Place to Belong, Book 04, (Paperback) Author: Laurel Leaf Library ISBN: 9780440226963 Format: Paperback Publication Date: 1996-05-21 Page Count: 160