Miracle in the Andes

February 20, 2006
In October 1972, a plane carrying an Uruguayan rugby team crashed in the Andes. Not immediately rescued, the survivors turned to cannibalism to survive and after 72 days were saved. Rugby team member Parrado has written a beautiful story of friendship, tragedy and perseverance. High in the Andes, with a fractured skull, eating the flesh of his teammates and friends, Parrado calmly ponders the cruelties of fate, the power of the natural world and the possibility of continued existence. "I would live from moment to moment and from breath to breath, until I had used up all the life I had." Parrado, who for the past 10 years has been giving inspirational talks based on his experiences, lost his mother and sister in the crash. Struggling to stay alive, his guide becomes his beloved father: "each brought me closer to my father... each step I took was a step stolen back from death." More than a companion to the 1970s bestselling chronicle of the disaster, Alive
, this is a fresh, gripping page-turner that will satisfy adventure readers, and a complex reflection on camaraderie, family and love. Photos. First serial in Outside.

April 15, 2006
In October 1972, Uruguayan rugby player Parrado awoke bewildered, freezing, and wracked with pain, finding himself stranded high in the Andes, one of numerous survivors of the crash of the airplane that had been carrying his rugby team to Chile. With little food or warm clothing, suffering from a head injury, and grieving the deaths of family members and friends, Parrado, with the other survivors, was plunged into a harrowing life-or-death struggle. Over 30 years later, he explains that he found the means to persevere through his deep love for his father, which enabled him to endure subzero temperatures, deadly avalanches, and the gruesome necessity of cannibalism. Contemplative yet unflinching, this thought-provoking work is both a gripping survival story and a sensitive examination of the sustaining power of religious faith, friendship, love, and family ties. More introspective than Piers Paul Read's journalistic account, "Alive", published soon after the ordeal, Parrado presents both the jaw-dropping realities of the 16 survivors' story and the life-altering lessons he learned from the experience. With its universal themes of courage and determination and its broad appeal to true-adventure fans, this work is recommended for all public libraries." -Ingrid Levin, Florida Atlantic Univ., Jupiter"

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2006
Adult/High School -In 1972, Parrado and his rugby teammates from Uruguay were flying to Chile to play a match against the national team. Crossing the Andes, the aircraft crashed on a remote, high-altitude, glaciated slope. This remarkable story of the survivors omits none of the raw intensity and brutality of their experience but is burnished by time, casting an analytical perspective on ways in which their subsequent lives were influenced by the ordeal. The many forms of courage exhibited and the sustaining power of love of family are the basis of the narrative as the group supported one another in a collective -refusal to surrender to the mountain. - Parrado credits their physical conditioning and the rigorous team ethic inherent in the sport as the foundation for the trust and allegiance that enabled the men to battle the odds. Reduced to the most elemental human needs and learning from a radio transmission that rescue efforts had been abandoned, they reluctantly realized that their only food source was the bodies of the victims. Parrado was respectful of the spiritual faith of those who clung to a belief in rescue, but put his energy into engineering a plan and acted as a leader of the -expeditionaries - who hiked through the perilous mountains to find help. A detailed chronicle of these events was presented in Piers Paul Read -s "Alive" (Avon, 1975), but Parrado -s memoir offers a reflective expansion of that work. Dramatic photographs are included." -Lynn Nutwell, Fairfax City Regional Library, VA"

Copyright 2006 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2006
In 1972, a plane carrying a Uruguayan rugby team and their families and supporters to an exhibition game in Chile crashed in the Andes. Parrado was one of the survivors, and he tells the story of their 72 days struggling against freezing weather and dangerous avalanches. The author's mother and sister were among those killed in the crash. Parrado was unconscious for three days, but after two months he set out on a 10-day journey in subzero cold to seek help. He describes how he and two other survivors climbed up the slopes and then back down: oxygen-starved bodies, dehydration, loose rocks, patches of ice, and a feeling of hopelessness. The survivors who had been left on the mountain were rescued by helicopter crews. It is an amazing story of bravery and courage.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)