I’m lucky that my kids love to read. We read the Bible, we read kid’s stories like the Pug Diaries, we read classics like Ann of Green Gables and Winnie The Pooh and Heidi and Call of the Wild and Pippi Longstocking, and we read prepping books for kids. Some of these books are, specifically, survival books for kids. Some of them may not specifically address survival/prepping for kids, but they teach them skills about camping and outdoor survival skills, which will help my children survive in an emergency.
Also, if you are looking at the picture of some of our favorite books that I have included with this post, ignore the dog hair. You see no dog hair in my photographs. You are getting very sleepy…
Dang it, the dog hair is still there. Anyway. Moving on.
It’s always been my goal to educate my children about how to survive both short-term and long-term disasters. We’ve been through storms where we had power outages that lasted a week. Those were excellent teaching opportunities. I always point out natural disasters to them on the news, and discuss what to do in the face of hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods.
And I’ve been through several terrifying incidences where my children were in public school – they are not in public school any longer – and I got text messages that were sent out to all parents, telling us that our children were sheltering in place because of some local threat.
When I tried to call to find out more information, the police had no information for me and just ordered me to stay away from the school buildings where my children were hunkered down. Awesome. And then I got panicked messages from my children. Even more awesome.
So those were some more conversations about prepping and what to do in dangerous situations – conversations that I really hate, but which we have to have.
These are some of the many reasons that, when I’m buying books, I always mix in survival books for kids.
10 books to help teach your kids prepping skills
So without further ado…adieux? Adoo?
Here is a list of 10 books that I recommend for teaching basic prepping skills to your kids:
- Prepper Pete Prepares This is a book geared towards younger children, and it introduces various basic prepping and survival concepts in an easy to understand way, with cute pictures.
- Prepper Pete: Gun of A Son This book is also geared towards younger children, and offers important, easy to understand lessons in gun safety for children. In an SHTF scenario, you may be forced to defend your family and your property, and you may come up against other people with guns. It’s very, very important for your children to have a thorough understanding of gun safety, and you want to start educating them about gun safety concepts as young as possible.
- Wilderness Survival Guide For Kids If you have to bug out, or if your children get lost in the woods, this could be a life-saver. It has very practical, specific tips. You should, of course, always accompany your kids on camping trips or ensure that they are with trusted adults, but – this is a prepper/survival site. So we’re not just talking about ideal situations, we’re talking about what your children should do in case of emergency.
- The Animal Adventurer’s Guide My kids love this book. To survive in the wild, whether it’s for a few days or longer term, you need to get comfortable and familiar with wildlife. This book teaches your kids how to look out for animal tracks, animal scat, and general signs that animals leave behind. It teaches things like setting a track-trap – using things like flour so that animals will leave clear tracks.
- Wilderness Survival and Bushcraft For Kids Filled with great tips that kids and adults can use. How to make a spear/gig, how to tie various knots, what bugs to eat in a survival situation (eww, gross. But, during bushcraft classes, I’ve eaten termites. You gotta do what you gotta do), what to put in your basic survival kit, etc.
- Off Grid Kid My family and I still enjoy electricity, but, during camping trips and our ‘no tech-days’, we do practice living off-grid. I pray that we never have to go completely off-grid in my lifetime or their lifetime, but we need to be prepared for that possibility. This book poses the question to kids – what would you do if you had no access to cell phones or electricity or modern conveniences? How would you survive? And then it provides very practical answers to surviving in specific scenarios.
- The Young Adventurer’s Guide to (Almost) Anything This book has a list of 45 fun outdoor activities for kids. Want to make a twig into a toothbrush? Want to know which clouds indicate a coming storm? Want to know what to do if you run into a bear in the woods? This book has you covered!
- Survival Skills for Kids Age 5 to 10 First aid, how to (safely) build a campfire, weather prediction, how to quickly and calmly make decisions in different types of emergencies…very practical hands on tips for kids. A great survival book for kids!
- The Hands-On Ranch Book: How To Tie A Knot, Saddle A Horse, Start A Garden, And Everything Else People Used To Know How To Do This book is perfect for both kids and adults who are going to bug-in, which is always the best option in an emergency scenario. It also includes instructions for identifying animal tracks, making candles, and other essential skills.
- The Last Kids On Earth This book is silly, and it’s fiction, but it’s fun for kids. It’s not a prepping book for kids, but it will get them thinking. It’s a story about all the adults vanishing, and cartoon monsters invading. It helps to get kids thinking about what they would do if they were ever in a situation where there were no adults around to depend on. They can put themselves in the place of the kids in this book and think about what they would do if they were in this situation. What are the kids in the book doing wrong? What are they doing right? What would your child/children do in this kind of scenario?
Affiliate Disclosure
By the way, these links are affiliate links, which means if you buy these books I get a small percentage of the price that you’ve paid, but it doesn’t cost you anything extra.