A 2022 YALSA Amazing Audiobook for Young Adults
Winner of the 2021 Kirkus Prize for Young People's Literature
A 2021 Newbery Honor Book
A 2021 Robert F. Sibert Honor Book
A 2021 YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults
Finalist
A 2021 Orbis Pictus Honor Book
A unique account of the amazing Thai cave rescue told in a heart-racing,
you-are-there style that blends suspense, science, and cultural insight.
On June 23, 2018, twelve young players of the Wild Boars soccer team and
their coach enter a cave in northern Thailand seeking an afternoon's
adventure. But when they turn to leave, rising floodwaters block their
path out. The boys are trapped! Before long, news of the missing team
spreads, launching a seventeen-day rescue operation involving thousands
of rescuers from around the globe. As the world sits vigil, people begin
to wonder: how long can a group of ordinary kids survive in complete
darkness, with no food or clean water? Luckily, the Wild Boars are a
very extraordinary "ordinary" group. Combining firsthand interviews of
rescue workers with in-depth science and details of the region's culture
and religion, author Christina Soontornvat--who was visiting family in
Northern Thailand when the Wild Boars went missing--masterfully shows
how both the complex engineering operation above ground and the mental
struggles of the thirteen young people below proved critical in the
life-or-death mission. Meticulously researched, this page-turner
includes an author's note describing her experience meeting the team,
detailed source notes, and a bibliography to fully immerse readers in
the most ambitious cave rescue in history.
