15 Secrets to Survival, by Natalie D Richards

(Paperback, 400 pages, first published in 2023)

New York Times bestselling author Natalie D. Richards's middle grade debut about a group of four classmates forced to navigate the wilderness for an extra credit project with nothing but the pages of a survival handbook—and each other—to save them. 

When classmates Baxter, Abigail, Turner and Emerson break a school rule, they’re forced to travel to the middle of nowhere for an extra credit project. They think things can’t get much worse. After all, how will learning to survive in the wilderness help them stay out of trouble in school?

What starts off as a weekend of team building takes a scary turn when their instructor goes missing and they are given nothing but pages of a survival guide to complete a series of challenges.

They soon learn the woods around them have unexpected surprises. Will they discover a way to work together to find their teacher and overcome the dangers of winter in the mountains?

Storyglory Cautions: The book begins with the kids calling each other names like "stupid," "pea brain," and "jerk," but they learn to be kinder to each other over the course of the book. "Crap" is used 3 times, and a baby frequently mispronounces "water" as "wa-turd."

Recommended Age: 9-13