Historical Fiction for Teens
Historical Fiction for Teens
1960's: The Vietnam War and the American Civil Rights Movement
| Rat Life by Ted Arnold
After developing an unusual friendship with a young Vietnam War veteran in 1972, fourteen-year-old Todd discovers his writing talent and solves a murder mystery. |
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| Mississippi Trial, 1955 by Cameron Crowe
In Mississippi in 1955, a sixteen-year-old finds himself at odds with his grandfather over issues surrounding the kidnapping and murder of a fourteen-year-old African American from Chicago. |
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| Cracker the Best Dog in Vietnam by Cynthia Kadohata A young soldier in Vietnam bonds with his bomb-sniffing dog. | |||
| Kira Kira by Cynthia Kadohata Chronicles the close friendship between two Japanese-American sisters growing up in rural Georgia during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the despair when one sister becomes terminally ill. | |||
| Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers Seventeen-year-old Richie Perry, just out of his Harlem high school, enlists in the Army in the summer of 1967 and spends a devastating year on active duty in Vietnam. | |||
| The Car by Gary Paulsen A teenager left on his own travels west in a kit car he built himself, and along the way picks up two Vietnam veterans, who take him on an eye-opening journey. |
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| Too Big a Storm by Marsh Qualey When serious worrier Brady Callahan meets vivacious Sally Cooper, daughter of a wealthy Minnesota family, they develop a close friendship that helps they both grow and survive during the turbulent Vietnam War era. | |||
The 1940’s: World War II |
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| The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (Historical Fiction) Tally Hamilton is furious to hear that she is being sent from London to a horrid, stuffy boarding school in the countryside, and all because of the stupid war. But Delderton Hall is a far more interesting place than Tally ever imagined, and an exciting school trip to the beautiful and luscious kingdom of Bergania whisks Tally into an unexpected adventure. Strong, eccentric characters and a life-or-death mystery in Bergania make this an original and satisfying read. |
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| Postcards from No Man’s Land by Aidan Chambers Alternates between two stories; past and present: In contemporary time, seventeen-year-old Jacob visits a daunting Amsterdam at the request of his English grandmother–and historically, nineteen-year-old Geertrui relates her experience of British soldier’s attempts to liberate Holland from its German occupation. | |||
| Daniel, Half Human: And the Good Nazi by Daniel Chotjewitz In 1933, best friends Daniel and Armin admire Hitler, but as anti-Semitism buoys Hitler to power, Daniel learns he is half Jewish, threatening the friendship even as life in their beloved Hamburg, Germany, is becoming nightmarish. Also details Daniel and Armin’s reunion in 1945 in interspersed chapters. | |||
| Ten Cents a Dance by Christine Fletcher In 1940s Chicago, fifteen-year-old Ruby hopes to escape poverty by becoming a taxi dancer in a nightclub, but the work has unforeseen dangers and hiding the truth from her family and friends becomes increasingly difficult. | |||
| Lily’s Crossing by Patricia Reilly Giff During a summer spent at Rockaway Beach in 1944, Lily’s friendship with a young Hungarian refugee causes her to see the war and her own world differently. | |||
| B for Buster by Iain Lawrence In the spring of 1943, sixteen-year-old Kak, desperate to escape his abusive parents, lies about his age to enlist in the Canadian Air Force and soon finds himself based in England as part of a crew flying bombing raids over Germany. | |||
| Art of Keeping Cool by Janet Taylor Lisle In 1942, Robert and his cousin Elliot uncover long-hidden family secrets while staying in their grandparents’ Rhode Island town, where they also become involved with a German artist who is suspected of being a spy. | |||
| A Boy At War: A Novel of Pearl Harbor by Harry Mazer While fishing with his friends off Honolulu on December 7, 1941, teenaged Adam is caught in the midst of the Japanese attack and through the chaos of the subsequent days tries to find his father, a naval officer who was serving on the U.S.S. Arizona when the bombs fell. | |||
| Stones in Water by Donna Jo Napoli After being taken by German soldiers from a local movie theater along with other Italian boys including his Jewish friend, Roberto is forced to work in Germany, escapes into the Ukrainian winter, before desperately trying to make his way back home to Venice. | |||
| Run Boy Run by Uri Orlev Based on the true story of a nine-year-old boy who escapes the Warsaw Ghetto and must survive throughout the war in the Nazi-occupied Polish countryside.
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| Thin Wood Walls by David Patneaude When the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, Joe Hamada and his family face growing prejudice, eventually being torn away from their home and sent to a relocation camp in California, even as his older brother joins the United States Army to fight in the war. | |||
| Eyes of the Emperor by Graham Salisbury Following orders from the United States Army, several young Japanese American men train K-9 units to hunt Asians during World War II. | |||
| The Road to Memphis by Mildred Taylor In 1941 a black youth, sadistically teased by two white boys in rural Mississippi, severely injures one of them with a tire iron and enlists Cassie’s help in trying to flee the state. | |||
| Climbing the Stairs by Padma Venktraman In India, in 1941, when her father becomes brain-damaged in a non-violent protest march, fifteen-year-old Vidya and her family are forced to move in with her father’s extended family and become accustomed to a totally different way of life. | |||
| The Gadget by Paul Zindel In 1945, having joined his father at Los Alamos, where he and other scientists are working on a secret project to end World War II, thirteen-year-old Stephen becomes caught in a web of secrecy and intrigue. | |||
1930’s |
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| Blood Gold by Michael Cadnum After an arduous journey, Will Dwinelle and his friend Ben finally reach California in 1849 intending to bring home the man who betrayed the honor of a girl back home in Philadelphia, but find themselves tempted by the riches of the Gold Rush. | |||
| The Truth About Sparrows by Marion Hale Twelve-year-old Sadie promises that she will always be Wilma’s best friend when their families leaves drought-stricken Missouri in 1933, but once in Texas, Sadie learns that she must try to make a new home–and new friends, too. |
| Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse In a series of poems, fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships of living on her family’s wheat farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl years of the Depression. | |||
| The Miner’s Daughter by Gretchen Moran Laskas Sixteen-year-old Willa, living in a Depression-era West Virginia mining town, works hard to help her family, experiences love and friendship, and finds an outlet for her writing when her family becomes part of the Arthurdale, West Virginia, community supported by Eleanor Roosevelt. | |||
| Let the Circle be Unbroken by Mildred B. Taylor Four black children growing up in rural Mississippi during the Depression experience racial antangonisms and hard times, but learn from their parents the pride and self-respect they need to survive. | |||
1920’s
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| Uprising by Margaret Peterson HaddixIn 1927, at the urging of twenty-one-year-old Harriet, Mrs. Livingston reluctantly recalls her experiences at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory, including miserable working conditions that led to a strike, then the fire that took the lives of her two best friends, when Harriet, the boss’s daughter, was only five years old. Includes historical notes. | |||
| Black Duck by Janet Taylor Lisle Years afterwards, Ruben Hart tells the story of how, in 1929 Newport, Rhode Island, his family and his best friend’s family were caught up in the violent competition among groups trying to control the local rum-smuggling trade. | |||
| White Lilacs by Carolyn Meyer In 1921 in Dillon, Texas, twelve-year-old Rose Lee sees trouble threatening her black community when the whites decide to take the land there for a park and forcibly relocate the black families to an ugly stretch of territory outside the town. | |||
| Tulsa Burning by Anna Myers In 1921, fifteen-year-old Noble Chase hates the sheriff of Wekiwa, Oklahoma, and is more than willing to cross him to help his best friend, a black man, who is injured during race riots in nearby Tulsa. | |||
1900-1920 |
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| Ashes of Roses by Mary Jane Auch Sixteen-year-old Margaret Rose Nolan, newly arrived from Ireland, finds work at New York City’s Triangle Shirtwaist Factory shortly before the 1911 fire in which 146 employees died. | |||
| A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly In 1906, sixteen-year-old Mattie, determined to attend college and be a writer against the wishes of her father and fiance, takes a job at a summer inn where she discovers the truth about the death of a guest. Based on a true story. | |||
| A Time of Angels by Karen Hesse Sick with influenza during the 1918 epidemic and separated from her two sisters, a young Jewish girl living in Boston relies on the help of an old German man, and her visions of angels, to get better and to reunite herself with her family. | |||
| Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson After inheriting her uncle’s homesteading claim in Montana, sixteen-year-old orphan Hattie Brooks travels from Iowa in 1917 to make a home for herself and encounters some unexpected problems related to the war being fought in Europe. | |||
| Shackleton’s Stowaway by Victoria McKernan A fictionalized account of the adventures of eighteen-year-old Perce Blackborow, who stowed away for the 1914 Shackleton Antarctic expedition and, after their ship Endurance was crushed by ice, endured many hardships, including the loss of the toes of his left foot to frostbite, during the nearly two-year return journey across sea and ice. | |||
| Streets of Gold by Marie RaphaelIn 1942, Robert and his cousin Elliot uncover long-hidden family secrets while staying in their grandparents’ Rhode Island town, where they also become involved with a German artist who is suspected of being a spy. | |||
World War I: 1914-1918 |
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| Remembrance by Theresa BreslinThe destinies of two Scottish families, one of shopkeepers and one of wealth and power, become entwined through their involvement in World War I, social causes, and love. | |||
| Lord of the Nutcracker Men by Iain LawrenceBased on the true story of a nine-year-old boy who escapes the Warsaw Ghetto and must survive throughout the war in the Nazi-occupied Polish countryside.
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| Private Peaceful by Michael MorpurgoWhen Thomas Peaceful’s older brother is forced to join the British Army, Thomas decides to sign up as well, although he is only fourteen years old, to prove himself to his country, his family, his childhood love, Molly, and himself. | |||
| Fire in the Hills by Anna MyersAfter her mother’s death, sixteen-year-old Hallie faces changes in her life in the hills of eastern Oklahoma in 1918, as she takes over caring for her family and begins thinking about life as a woman. | |||
| Kipling’s Choice by Geert SpillebeenIn 1915, mortally wounded in Loos, France, eighteen-year-old John Kipling, son of writer Rudyard Kipling, remembers his boyhood and the events leading to what is to be his first and last World War I battle. | |||
| And in the Morning by John WilsonWhen 15-year-old Jim Hay’s father is killed in World War I, Jim is compelled to leave his native Scotland to fight, and struggles with the horrors of war as he tries to survive trench warfare. |
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Late 1800’s |
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| Charlotte’s Rose by A.E. Cannon As a twelve-year-old Welsh immigrant carries a motherless baby along the Mormon Trail in 1856, she comes to love the baby as her own and fear the day the baby’s father will reclaim her. | |||
| The Birchbark House by Louise ErdrichOmakayas, a seven-year-old Native American girl of the Ojibwa tribe, lives through the joys of summer and the perils of winter on an island in Lake Superior in 1847. | |||
| In the Shadow of the Alamo by Sherry GarlandConscripted into the Mexican Army, fifteen-year-old Lorenzo Bonifacio makes some unexpected alliances and learns some harsh truths about General Santa Ana as the troops move toward the Battle of the Alamo. | |||
| Jason’s Gold by Will Hobbs When news of the discovery of gold in Canada’s Yukon Territory in 1897 reaches fifteen-year-old Jason, he embarks on a 10,000-mile journey to strike it ri. | |||
| Boston Jane: An Adventure by Jennifer L. Holm Schooled in the lessons of etiquette for young ladies of 1854, Miss Jane Peck of Philadelphia finds little use for manners during her long sea voyage to the Pacific Northwest and while living among the American traders and Chinook Indians of Washington Territory. | |||
| The Land by Mildred B. TaylorAfter the Civil War Paul, the son of a white father and a black mother, finds himself caught between the two worlds of colored folks and white folks as he pursues his dream of owning land of his own.Prequel the Newbery Medal Winner Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. |
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| Finding Hattie by Sally WarnerIn 1882 Hattie, a 14-year-old orphan, joins her cousin Sophie at Miss Bulkley’s Seminary for Young Ladies, a boarding school in Tarrytown, New York. There she tries to accept the loss of her family and adjust to very different surroundings. |
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Civil War 1861-1865
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| Stealing South: A Story of the Underground Railroad by Katherine Ayres Sixteen-year-old Will Spencer leaves home to become a peddler, but gets more than he bargained for when he agrees to go to Kentucky, steal two slaves, and help them reach their brother in Canada. |
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| Evvy’s Civil War by Miriam BrenamanIn Virginia in 1860, on the verge of the Civil War, fourteen-year-old Evvy chafes at the restrictions that her society places on both women and slaves. | |||
| With Every Drop of Blood by James Lincoln Collier While trying to transport food to Richmond, Virginia, during the Civil War, fourteen-year-old Johnny is captured by a black Union soldier. | |||
| Uncommon Faith by Trudy Krishner In 1837-38, residents of Millbrook, Massachusetts, speak in their different voices of major issues of their day, including women’s rights, slavery, religious differences, and one fiery girl named Faith. |
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| A Soldier’s Heart by Gary PaulsenEager to enlist, fifteen-year-old Charley has a change of heart after experiencing both the physical horrors and mental anguish of Civil War combat. | |||
| Amelia’s War by Ann RinaldiWhen a Confederate general threatens to burn Hagerstown, Maryland, unless it pays an exorbitant ransom, twelve-year-old Amelia and her friend find a way to save the town. | |||
1700’s
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| Fever, 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson In 1793 Philadelphia, sixteen-year-old Matilda Cook, separated from her sick mother, learns about perseverance and self-reliance when she is forced to cope with the horrors of a yellow fever epidemic. | |||
| The Ransom of Mercy Carter by Caroline B. Cooney Mercy and her family are captured by Mohawk Indians in 1704, in the English settlement of Deerfield, Massachusetts. Eleven-year-old Mercy is forced to adapt to new life while still hoping to be ransomed. |
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| Pirates! The True and Remarkable Adventures of Minerva Sharpe and Nancy Kingston, Female Pirates by Celia ReesIn 1722, after arriving with her brother at the family’s Jamaican plantation where she is to be married off, sixteen-year-old Nancy Kington escapes with her slave friend, Minerva Sharpe, and together they become pirates traveling the world in search of treasure. | |||
| Smith by Leon GarfieldMoments after he steals a document from a man’s pocket, an illiterate young pickpocket in eighteenth-century London witnesses the man’s murder by two men who want the document. | |||
American Revolution 1775 - 1783
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| Chains by Laurie Halse AndersonAfter being sold to a cruel couple in New York City, a slave named Isabel spies for the rebels during the Revolutionary War.
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| The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing by M.T. AndersonVarious diaries, letters, and other manuscripts chronicle the experiences of Octavian, a young African American, from birth to age sixteen, as he is brought up as part of a science experiment in the years leading up to and during the Revolutionary War. | |||
| Year of the Hangman by Gary L. BlackwoodIn 1777, having been kidnapped and taken forcibly from England to the American colonies, fifteen-year-old Creighton becomes part of developments in the political unrest there that may spell defeat for the patriots and change the course of history. | |||
| My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier Recounts the tragedy that strikes the Meeker family during the Revolution when one son joins the rebel forces while the rest of the family tries to stay neutral in a Tory town. | |||
| The Hollow Tree by Janet LunnFifteen-year-old Phoebe Olcott, distraught when her beloved cousin Gideon is hanged as a British spy, becomes caught up in the turmoil of war when she decides to deliver the secret message Gideon was carrying to the British general at Fort Ticonderoga. |
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| The Sacrifice by Diane MatcheckWhen her father’s death leaves her orphaned and an outcast among her Apsaalooka (Crow) people, a fifteen-year-old sets out to avenge his death and prove that she, not her dead twin brother, is destined to be the Great One. | |||
| Sorceress by Celia Rees Eighteen-year-old Agnes, a Mohawk Indian who is descended from a line of shamanic healers, uses her own newly-discovered powers to uncover the story of her ancestor, a 17th Cnetury New England English healer who fled charges of witchcraft to make her life with the local Indians. |
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| Cast Two Shadows: The American Revolution in the South by Ann RinaldiIn South Carolina in 1780, fourteen-year-old Caroline sees the Revolutionary War take a terrible toll among her family and friends and comes to understand the true nature of war. | |||
| Secret Life of Sarah Revere by Ann Rinaldi Paul Revere’s daughter describes her father’s rides and the intelligence network of the patriot community prior to the American Revolution. |
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1500-1600’s - America
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| Redemption by Julie ChibbaroChronicles the arduous journey of a twelve-year-old English girl and her mother as they flee with other religious protesters to the New World in the early 1500’s, and the heartbreak and hope they find when they arrive. | |||
| Trouble’s Daughter: The Story of Susanna Hutchinson by Katherine Kirkpatrick When her family is massacred by Lenape Indians in 1643, nine-year-old Susanna, daughter of Anne Hutchinson, is captured and raised as a Lenape. |
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| Witch Child by Celia Rees In 1659, fourteen-year-old Mary Newbury keeps a journal of her voyage from England to the New World and her experiences living as a witch in a community of Puritans near Salem, Massachusetts. |
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European History: Middle Ages and Renaissance
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| The Shakespeare Stealer by Gary Blackwood A young orphan boy is ordered by his master to infiltrate Shakespeare’s acting troupe in order to steal the script of “Hamlet,” but he discovers instead the meaning of friendship and loyalty. |
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| The Devil and His Boy by Anthony Horowitz In 1593, 13-year-old Tom travels through the English contryside to London, where he falls in with a troupe of actors and finds himself in great danger. |
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| Beware, Princess Elizabeth by Carolyn Meyer After the death of her father, King Henry VIII, in 1547, thirteen-year-old Elizabeth must endure the political intrigues and dangers of the reigns of her half-brother Edward and her half-sister Mary before finally becoming Queen of England eleven years later. |
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| Mary, Bloody Mary by Carolyn Meyer Mary Tudor, who would reign briefly as Queen of England during the mid sixteenth century, tells the story of her troubled childhood as daughter of King Henry VIII. |
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| No Shame, No Fear by Ann Turnbull In England in 1662, a time of religious persecution, fifteen-year-old Susanna, a poor country girl and a Quaker, and seventeen-year-old William, a wealthy Anglican, meet and fall in love against all odds. |
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Middle Ages
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| Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi Falsely accused of theft and murder, an orphaned peasant boy in fourteenth-century England flees his village and meets a larger-than-life juggler who holds a dangerous secret. |
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| Enter Three Witches by Caroline B. Cooney This novelization of Macbeth focuses on the lives of the servants and the nobility who were present the night King Duncan was murdered. A dark tale with many twists. |
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| Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman Catherine, the 13-year-old daughter of an English country knight longs for adventures beyond the usual role of women and to avoid being married off |
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| Blood Red Horse by K.M. Grant You only need three things to become a brave and noble knight: a warhorse, a fair maiden and a just cause. Will has a horse. Ellie is a fair maiden. King Richard is calling for a Crusade: the Knights of England must go to the Holy Land to fight. Will and his brother Gavin will go. The journey is fraught with peril and struggle, but through it all, they have two constants–Ellie and a blood red horse named Hosanna. |
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| The King’s Swift Rider: A Novel on Robert the Bruce by Mollie Hunter Unwilling to fight but feeling a sense of duty, sixteen-year-old Martin joins Scotland’s rebel army as a swift rider and master of espionage for the leader, Robert the Bruce. |
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| Girl in a Cage by Jane Yolen As English armies invade Scotland in 1306, eleven-year-old Princess Marjorie, daughter of the newly crowned Scottish king, Robert the Bruce, is captured by England’s King Edward Longshanks and held in a cage on public display. |
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Ancient Greece and Egypt |
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