Historical Fiction for KidsLike this list

23 items

• Across So Many Seas

  Behar, Ruth, 1956-

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  Spanning over five hundred years, a novel telling the stories of four girls from different generations of a Jewish family, many of them forced to leave their country and start a new life.

• One Crazy Summer

  Williams-Garcia, Rita

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  In the summer of 1968, after travelling from Brooklyn to Oakland, California, to spend a month with the mother they barely know, eleven-year-old Delphine and her two younger sisters arrive to a cold welcome as they discover that their mother, a…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963

  a Novel

  Curtis, Christopher Paul

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  The ordinary interactions and everyday routines of the Watsons, an African American family living in Flint, Michigan, are drastically changed after they go to visit Grandma in Alabama in the summer of 1963.

• Number the Stars

  Lowry, Lois,

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  In 1943, during the German occupation of Denmark, ten-year-old Annemarie learns how to be brave and courageous when she helps shelter her Jewish friend from the Nazis.

• Ground Zero

  Gratz, Alan, 1972-

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  Brandon is visiting his dad on the 107th floor of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 when the attack comes; Reshmina is a girl in Afghanistan who has grown up in the aftermath of that attack but dreams of peace, becoming a teacher and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Heart of a Samurai

  Based on the True Story of Nakahama Manjiro

  Preus, Margi

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  In 1841, rescued by an American whaler after a terrible shipwreck leaves him and his four companions castaways on a remote island, fourteen-year-old Manjiro, who dreams of becoming a samurai, learns new laws and customs as he becomes the first…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Night Diary

  Hiranandani, Veera,

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  It's 1947, and India, newly independent of British rule, has been separated into two countries: Pakistan and India. The divide has created much tension between Hindus and Muslims, and hundreds of thousands are killed crossing borders. Half-Muslim,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Crispin

  the Cross of Lead

  Avi, 1937-

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  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.

• Like a River

  a Civil War Novel

  Wiechman, Kathy Cannon,

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  Teenagers Leander and Polly join the Union Army with hopes of making changes in their own lives. When they meet each other in a hospital, they form a powerful friendship.

• Catherine, Called Birdy

  Cushman, Karen

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  The thirteen-year-old daughter of an English country knight keeps a journal in which she records the events of her life, particularly her longing for adventures beyond the usual role of women and her efforts to avoid being married off.

• Brother's Keeper

  Lee, Julie (Children's fiction writer),

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  Twelve-year-old Sora and her eight-year-old brother, Youngsoo, must try to escape North Korea's oppressive Communist regime on their own in 1950. Includes historical notes, photographs of the author's mother, glossary of Korean words, and timeline.

• The Birchbark House

  Erdrich, Louise

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  Omakayas, 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.

• Finding Langston

  Cline-Ransome, Lesa

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  Discovering a book of Langston Hughes' poetry in the library helps Langston cope with the loss of his mother, relocating from Alabama to Chicago as part of the Great Migration, and being bullied.

• When My Name Was Keoko

  Park, Linda Sue

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  With national pride and occasional fear, a brother and sister face the increasingly oppressive occupation of Korea by Japan during World War II, which threatens to suppress Korean culture entirely.

• Stella by Starlight

  Draper, Sharon M. (Sharon Mills)

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  When a burning cross set by the Klan causes panic and fear in 1932 Bumblebee, North Carolina, fifth-grader Stella must face prejudice and find the strength to demand change in her segregated town.

• Inside Out & Back Again

  Lại, Thanhhà

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  Through a series of poems, a young girl chronicles the life-changing year of 1975, when she, her mother, and her brothers leave Vietnam and resettle in Alabama.

• Nory Ryan's Song

  Giff, Patricia Reilly

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  When a terrible blight attacks Ireland's potato crop in 1845, twelve-year-old Nory Ryan's courage and ingenuity help her family and neighbors survive.

• Breaking Stalin's Nose

  Yelchin, Eugene

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  In the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union, ten-year-old Sasha idolizes his father, a devoted Communist, but when police take his father away and leave Sasha homeless, he is forced to examine his own perceptions, values, and beliefs.

• Esperanza Rising

  Ryan, Pam Muñoz

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  Esperanza and her mother are forced to leave their life of wealth and privilege in Mexico to go work in the labor camps of Southern California, where they must adapt to the harsh circumstances facing Mexican farm workers on the eve of the Great…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• A Long Walk to Water

  Based on a True Story

  Park, Linda Sue

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  When the Sudanese civil war reaches his village in 1985, eleven-year-old Salva becomes separated from his family and must walk with other Dinka tribe members through southern Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya in search of safe haven. Based on the life of…Read moreRead more of this annotation