SHORT-LISTED FOR THE EDWARD STANFORD CHILDREN’S TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024.

Sometimes adventure, like life, doesn’t work out as you want it to. Even determined explorers make mistakes. Some things go wrong through no fault of your own. Many of the greatest adventurers of all time failed along the way. Others had to overcome hardships to pursue lives of adventure.

Hand-picked by adventurer Alastair Humphreys, this compilation retells the extraordinary journeys undertaken by adventurers who have tried, failed and succeeded against the odds.
It features expeditions that went desperately wrong and turned into struggles for survival that teach us about friendship, kindness and hope. Other adventurers had to fight for their right to succeed in the face of discrimination or setbacks that threatened to squash their dreams. They teach us about courage, determination and positivity in overcoming prejudice.

Featuring adventurers modern and ancient, from Zheng He to Joe Simpson, Jeanne Baret to Matthew Henson, these men and women ventured into space, oceans, deserts and jungles, and may inspire you to do the same.

Against the Odds is a book full of hope and the power of self-belief and resilience.

“We often hold a very narrow ideas of what ‘success’ means. We think that if we don’t reach a certain outcome, then we’ve failed and wasted our time. But in these chapters, you are going to read of changed plans leading to greater happiness, of personal disaster opening the door to wonderful experiences, of lessons learned from compromising, and even occasions when mere survival is triumph enough.” – Alastair Humphreys

96 pages.

Hardback.