50+ Amazing Adventure Chapter Books for Boys

National Book Award Winner * An ALA Best of the Best Books for Young Adults * A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year

A boy fleeing from criminal charges falls in with a charlatan, his dwarf attendant, and an urchin girl, travels with them about the kingdom of Westmark, and ultimately arrives at the palace where the king is grieving over the loss of his daughter.

After he loses his kingdom and everything he owns in a dice game, the young king of Sundari embarks on a magical quest to atone for his mistake and to learn about honor, goodness, and the preciousness of life.

Separated from his faithful servant, the prince finds himself fending off murderers, falling prey to trickery, and searching for a village girl who plays a magic flute.

But it isn’t until he faces his most challenging personal trial that the heroic traveler fully realizes the astonishing power hidden in each humble gift.

Meticulously researched and brilliantly crafted, combining fictional characters with historical, Andrew’s tale offers up a vivid look at the cloak-and-dagger politics of the time and a genuine feel for what it must have been like for the first Europeans to set foot on the beautiful, bountiful, savage shores of America.

Best-selling authors Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson have turned back the clock and revealed a wonderful story that precedes J. M. Barrie’s beloved Peter Pan.

At the end of their freshman year at the Burlington Academy for the Superhuman, Chance Fortune and the Outlaws saved the universe.

Though he lacks a superpower, Chance used his natural talents and quick wits to form his team, the Outlaws, into an effective fighting force.

When intrepid investigators Cass and Max-Ernest set out to discover the history of the mysterious Symphony of Smells, they become embroiled in a dastardly experiment involving kidnapped children and the secret of eternal youth. 

Expertly told, The Telling Pool transports young readers to the days of the Crusades, magic sorcery and the land where legends were formed. 

The fifth-grade Week in the Woods is a beloved tradition of Hardy Elementary, where Mark Chelmsley (the Fourth) is pretty much killing time before his parents send him off to an exclusive prep school.

Then Mark realizes the Week might be a chance to prove to his teacher  that he’s not just another of the slacker rich kids the teacher can’t stand.

Twelve-year-old criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl has discovered a world below ground of armed and dangerous — and extremely high-tech — fairies.

He kidnaps one of them, Holly Short, and holds her for ransom in an effort to restore his family’s fortune.

But he may have underestimated the fairies’ powers.

Every kid’s dream is to be named as the most valuable player.

How many ever dream that the game is a race around the world (no flying allowed) in just forty days?

When Sam visits Zara and Ben and their great-uncle, the quirky inventor Professor Ampersand, he never expects to embark on a fantastical adventure.

When Professor Ampersand and his group of professor friends are kidnapped by the evil Professor Murdo, it’s up to Sam, Zara, and Ben to save them.

Sometimes magic doesn’t always do what one intends… especially when one is a bard-in-training. 

In the year 793, siblings Jack and Lucy are captured by fearsome Vikings with a thirst for battle and pillaging.

Taken to the court of Ivar the Boneless, Jack and Lucy are sent on a perilous journey – full of dragons and giant spiders – deep into the magical kingdom of the trolls!

Terribly unhappy in his family’s crowded New York City apartment, Sam Gribley runs away to the solitude-and danger-of the mountains, where he finds a side of himself he never knew.

They can rule the half-pipe, but can they survive being stranded in the  middle of nowhere?

With winter fast approaching, and food running out, this family must all work together to keep from becoming trapped in the howling wilds.

As Dawson City goes up in flames, Jason Hawthorn itches to join the new rush for gold in Nome – nearly 2,000 miles away.

When a race to Nome with a $20,000 prize is announced, Jason and the girl he loves decide to attempt the journey together in their canoe.

For the past four years, Rick Walker has been shuffled between foster care and group homes. For Rick, life is a maze full of dead ends.

But when he is threatened at Blue Canyon and runs away, Rick finds himself in a real maze – the enormous rocky expanse of Canyonlands National Park in Utah. 

Sir Damian Cray is a philanthropist, peace activist, and the world’s most famous pop star.

Trouble is, only Alex Rider recognizes that it’s the world that needs saving from Sir Damian Cray. 

Adrift in the Mediterranean, Ben and his loyal dog Ned-cursed by an avenging angel to roam the earth forever-fall into the clutches of a slaver, and have no one to rely on but each other in their quest for freedom.

For as long as ten-year-old Moon can remember, he has lived out in the forest in a shelter with his father. 

After his father dies, the spirited and resourceful Moon encounters constables, jails, institutions, lawyers, true friends, and true enemies, he adapts his wilderness survival skills and learns to survive in the outside world, and even, perhaps, make his home there. 

John Spencer is fourteen when his father’s ship, the ill-fated Isle of Skye, is shipwrecked on the coast of Cornwall as she makes for her home port. 

When John discovers that his father is alive but being held prisoner, he must try and rescue him — without knowing who can be trusted to help.

After 17-year-old John Spencer sets out on his first voyage to foreign lands, he and his crew are wary when they come across a stranger named Horn rowing a lifeboat in the middle of nowhere.

What is the man hiding?

It is spring 1929, and Prohibition is in full swing.

Ruben meets the daring captain of the Black Duck, the most elusive smuggling craft of them all, and it isn’t long before he’s caught in a war between two of the most dangerous prohibition gangs.

Bobby Pendragon was a seemingly normal fourteen-year-old boy. He had a family, a home, and even Marley, his beloved dog.

Then one day his uncle Press showed up telling Bobby that some people needed his help, and nothing has been the same since.

World War III becomes an unstoppable reality in the action-packed first installment of the Tomorrow series.

Victoria McKernan deftly weaves the hard-to-fathom facts of this famous voyage into an epic, edge-of-your-seat survival novel.

When Michael is washed up on an island in the Pacific after falling from his parents’ yacht, he struggles to survive on his own.

Following a close-run battle between life and death, the mysterious stranger – Kensuke – allows Michael into his world and they become friends, teaching and learning from each other, until the day of separation becomes inevitable.

Filled with rapier-sharp wit, jousting jocularity, and chuckleheaded knights, this is King Arthur’s court as never before experienced.

From the award-winning author of The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife comes a spooky, funny thriller just right for those middle-grade readers looking for horror--and humor.  

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.

From three-time Newbery Honor-winning author Gary Paulsen comes a beloved follow-up to his award-winning classic Hatchet that asks: What if Brian hadn’t been rescued and had to face his deadliest enemy yet–winter?

Fourteen-year-old David Alspeth is the owner of a 22-foot sailboat, an inheritance from his uncle Owen, who recently died of cancer.

On the return trip home he is caught unawares by a freak storm.

Stranded, with no compass, no radio, and only a few cans of food, it seems as if things couldn’t get any worse. But they do.

Swallows and Amazons, the book that started it all in 1930, introduces the Walker family, the camp on Wild Cat Island, the able-bodied catboat “Swallow”, and the two intrepid Amazons, plucky Nancy and Peggy Blackett. 

Matt and his friend Robin traverse the globe, battling terrifying sand creatures and mercenaries alike in their efforts to stop the chaos code from being activated – and dooming the modern world to a catastrophe not seen since the days of Atlantis.

Fast-paced and suspenseful, this compelling historical novel combines page-turning excitement with a well-researched portrait of the ancient world.

Written in alternating chapters that relate the parallel stories of Johnny and his grandfather, this novel poignantly addresses the hardships of life in the far north, suggesting that the most dangerous traps need not be made of steel.

After Peak Marcello is arrested for scaling a New York City skyscraper, he’s left with two choices: wither away in Juvenile Detention or go live with his long-lost father, who runs a climbing company in Thailand.

Peak quickly learns that his father’s renewed interest in him has strings attached.

Newbery Honor Book

A thirteen-year-old boy struggles to survive on his own in the wilderness of eighteenth-century Maine.

Mafatu has been afraid of the sea for as long as he can remember. With his dog, Uri, as his companion, Mafatu paddles out to sea, ready to face his fears.

What he learns on his lonesome adventure will change him forever and make him a hero in the eyes of his people.

This remarkable and acclaimed debut novel, by the Newbery-winning author of When You Reach Me and the new instant classic The List of Things That Will Not Change, introduces readers to a captivating, hidden world below the ice. 

Young David Balfour is cheated out of his inheritance by his uncle, who then has him kidnapped and forced into servitude on a sailing ship bound for a long voyage.

What follows is one of the most spellbinding stories ever written.

For fans of Hatchet and Island of the Blue Dolphins comes Theodore Taylor’s classic bestseller and Lewis Carroll Shelf Award winner, The Cay.

This thrilling new adventure story from bestselling author Theodore Taylor is a moving testament to the bond between brothers–and to the strength of the human spirit.

By turns suspenseful and poignant, Blind Mountain is a gripping story of survival.

It will appeal to all readers who enjoy a blend of well-developed characters and nail-biting action.

New York Times-bestselling author Megan Whalen Turner’s entrancing and award-winning Queen’s Thief novels bring to life the world of the epics.

This first book in series introduces one of the most charismatic and incorrigible characters of fiction, Eugenides the thief. 

Take a thrilling whirlwind trip around the world with Phileas Fogg!

When Fogg — a man of habit whose every day is just like the one before — makes a bet that he can circle the globe and be back in his men’s club in just 80 days, the race is on.

Will Weaver delivers an extraordinary sequel to Memory Boy, showing that several basic instincts lie deep inside us all: love, fear, and survival.

Blue Fingers, a suspenseful, action-packed coming-of-age story set in feudal Japan, offers an up-close look at this noble, fierce way of life.

When the laird brutally evicts all of the people in his Scottish village, Roddy Macallan, determined to get revenge and save his family, embarks on a dangerous quest to find a treasure his mother once told him about and teams up with a Robin Hood-esque rogue who roams the Highlands.