Historical Fiction through 20th Century Print E-mail


  • All-of-a-Kind Family Uptown by Sydney Taylor

    Sydney Taylor grew up among immigrant families on New York City's Lower East Side prior to World War I and wrote the All-of-a-Kind Family stories for her daughter. Based on her childhood, these charming books capture the everyday life of a home with little money but lots of love and good times to share. Each book shares the ups and downs through the eyes of Ella, Charlotte, Henny, Sarah, read more ...

  • Black Gold by Marguerite Henry

    No one thinks much of Black Gold because he is so small. But Jaydee sees something special in his eyes. He knows Black Gold would be great ifhewas his rider! Finally, Jaydee gets his wish. And Black Gold grows strong and fast under his careful hands. Soon it would be time for the most important race in America. Did they really have what it takes to win? Black Gold's inspirational story p read more ...

  • The Borrowed House by Hilda Van Stockum

    When Janna is suddenly summoned from Germany to join her actor parents in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, she is shocked by the Dutch hatred for the Germans. Her favorite Nordic tales and Hitler Youth indoctrination have not prepared her for the complexities of living in a house requisitioned by a military friend of her parents; or for the violence she sees on the streets. With her parents preoccup read more ...

  • Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis

    It's 1936, in Flint, Michigan. Times may be hard, and ten-year-old Bud may be a motherless boy on the run, but Bud's got a few things going for him: 1. He has his own suitcase filled with his own important, secret things. 2. He's the author of Bud Caldwell's Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself. 3. His momma never told him who his read more ...

  • Captain's Command by Anna Myers

    It's up to Gail and Captain, the golden retriever Gail's father gave to her before he left to fight in World War II, to save Uncle Ned-from himself!



  • Cat Running by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

    When eleven-year-old Cat Kinsey builds a secret hideout to escape her unhappy homelife, she slowly gets to know a poor family who have come to California after losing their Texas home to the dust storms of the 1930s.



  • The Cay by Theodore Taylor

    Shipwrecked on a tiny Caribbean island, Philip must overcome his prejudice towards Timothy, the old black sailor who becomes the key to his survival. "This is one of the best survival stories since Robinson Crusoe."--The Washington Star. An ALA Notable Children's Book, Jane Addams Children's Book Award, Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, Commonwealth Club of California: Literature  read more ...

  • Choosing Up Sides by John Ritter

    Left-hander Luke Bledsoe has spent his whole life feeling like an outsider--until the day he steps on the baseball field and discovers that he has a fastball straight out of heaven. On the field, Luke discovers a whole new side to life--and to himself.



  • The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen

    This critically acclaimed novel by award-winning author Jane Yolen is now available in a beautifully designed new edition. Hannah dreads going to her family's Passover Seder -- she's tired of hearing her relatives talk about the past. But when she opens the front door to symbolically welcome the prophet Elijah, she's transported to a Polish village in the year 1942, where she bec read more ...

  • Don't You Know There's a War On? by Avi

    This surprising historical novel makes its timely paperback debut with a tale of daily life turned upside down by monumental national events. From 25-cent picture shows to Censor-stamped airmail, this World War II adventure is brimming with nostalgia and patriotism. A testament to Avi's genius as a storyteller, Don't You Know There's a War On? is the poignantly humorous story of  read more ...

  • Dovey Coe by Frances Dowell

    My name is Dovey Coe and I reckon it don't matter if you like me or not. I'm here to lay the record straight, to let you know them folks saying I done a terrible thing are liars. I aim to prove it, too. I hated Parnell Caraway as much as the next person, but I didn't kill him.There have been Coes living in the mountains of Indian Creek, North Carolina, going on forever, and every read more ...

  • The Eternal Spring of Mr. Ito by Sheila Garrigue

    The fate of a 200-year-old bonsai tree is decided by a young girl and an old Japanese Canadian gardener who resists being imprisoned in an internment camp after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Sequel to "All the Children Were Sent Away."



  • Fire in the Sky by Candice Ransom

    More than losing at marbles, worrying about his relatives and the Nazis in Germany, or hearing his favorite radio hero Jack Armstrong, nine-year-old Stenny Green is focused on getting to see the Hindenburg when it lands near their home in Lakehurst, New Jersey, in 1937.



  • Foster's War by Carolyn Reeder

    Meet eleven-year-old Foster Simmons, whose older brother, Mel, is fighting in World War II. At home with his demanding father, Foster does his best to win his own personal battles.



  • Gay-Neck: The Story of a Pigeon by Dhan Ghopal Mukerji

    The story of the training of a carrier pigeon and its service during the First World War, revealing the bird's courageous and spirited adventures over the housetops of an Indian village, in the Himalayan Mountains, and on the French battlefield.



  • The Good Liar by Gregory Maguire

    The year is 1940 and France has fallen to the German army. In the village of Mont-Saint-Martin, brothers Pierre, Ren, and Fat Marcel enjoy an idyllic childhood-stealing berry tarts, playing soldiers, and holding contests to determine who of the three is the biggest and best liar. As the small community, especially its Jewish members, begins to feel the effects of the war, Ren and Marcel form read more ...

  • Goodbye, Billy Radish by Gloria Skurzynski

    This is the poignant story of the friendship between two boys, Hank Kerner and Bazyli Radichevych, called Billy Radish, set in the steel town of Canaan, Pennsylvania, in 1917. Thge boys are very different, for while Hank considers himself all-American, Billy is a Ukrainian immigrant straddling two cultures. As World War I rages overseas, both boys are faced with some difficult questions.

     read more ...

  • Grandpa's mountain by Carolyn Reeder

    While visiting her grandparents' home in the Blue Ridge Mountains, 11-year-old Carrie gets caught up in her grandfather's fight to prevent the government's confiscation of his land for the Shenandoah National Park. Based on actual events that occurred during the Great Depression. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.



  • Hank's Story by Jane Buchanan

    In 1923, twelve-year-old Hank and his older brother Peter travel on the Orphan Train from New York to Nebraska where they find a miserable existence living on a farm with a disagreeable and abusive couple whose only use for the brothers is as unpaid help.



  • Hiroshima by Laurence Yep

    The story describes the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, particularly as it affects Sachi, who becomes one of the Hiroshima Maidens.



  • Homesick: My Own Story by Jean Fritz

    Fritz's Newbery Honor-winning memoir of growing up during a turbulent time in China's history is "rich in the telling observations of sights, sounds and people" ("Publishers Weekly"). Illustrations & photos.



  • The House of Sixty Fathers by Meindert De Jong

    Meindert DeJong is the winner of the 1954 Newbery Award for The Wheel on the School. The New York Herald Tribune praised this book for "its insight that stimulates the imagination and its clear beauty, like that of a Vermeer painting."The scene of this latest book by Mr. DeJong is China, during the Japanese occupation. Young Tien Pao is alone on his family's sampan when the boa read more ...

  • The Impossible Journey by Gloria Whelan

    One Russian night in 1934, Marya and Georgi's parents disappear. Despite high risks, Katya and Misha had spoken against the government. The children, alone and desperate, fear the worst. Will they ever see their parents again?

    But all it takes is one crumpled letter to give Marya and Georgi hope and send them on a dangerous mission to reunite their family. They must steal away read more ...

  • A Jar of Dreams by Yoshiko Uchida

    A young girl grows up in a closely-knit Japanese American family in California during the 1930's, a time of great prejudice.



  • Journey Home by Yoshiko Uchida

    "This book fills a great need in describing the cruel treatment inflicted upon Japanese-Americans during World War II by their fellow Americans".--School Library Journal. Uchida is the author of the critically acclaimed Japanese-American tales The Best Bad Thing and The Happiest Ending. 10 illustrations. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.



  • Journey to America by Sonia Levitin

    A Jewish family fleeing Nazi Germany in 1938 endures innumerable separations before they are once again united.



  • Katarina by Kathryn Winter

    #During World War II in Slovakia, a young Jewish girl who is a devout Catholic is separated from her family and sent into hiding to avoid being sent to a concentration camp.



  • Kathleen: The Celtic Knot by Siobhan Parkinson

    "It's like flying!" twelve-year-old Kathleen Murphy decides after her very first Irish dancing lesson. But times are tough in Dublin and her da's hardly working, so there's no money to spare for lessons, much less a fancy dancing costume to compete in. Then, when one unexpected thing leads to another, Kathleen realizes that even when dreams change, the future holds poss read more ...

  • A Letter to Mrs. Roosevelt by C. Coco De Young

    Eleven-year-old Margo Bandini has never been afraid of anything. Her life in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, with Mama and Papa and her little brother, Charlie, has always felt secure. But it's 1933, and the Great Depression is changing things for families all across America. One day the impossible happens: Papa cannot make the payments for their house, and the Sheriff Sale sign goes up on thei read more ...

  • Letters from Rifka by Karen Hesse

    "America," the girl repeated. "What will you do there?" I was silent for a little time. "I will do everything there," I answered. Rifka knows nothing about America when she flees from Russia with her family in 1919. But she dreams that in the new country she will at last be safe from the Russian soldiers and their harsh treatment of the Jews. Throughout her jour read more ...

  • Lily's Crossing by Patricia Reilly Giff

    This year, as in other years, Lily has planned a spectacular summer in Rockaway, in her family's cozy house on stilts over the Atlantic Ocean. But by the summer of 1944, World War II has changed almost everyone's life. Lily's best friend, Margaret, and her family have moved to a wartime factory town, and worse, much worse, Lily's father is on his way overseas to the war. Ther read more ...

  • Listening for Lions by Gloria Whelan

    Thirteen-year-old Rachel Sheridan is left an orphan after influenza takes the lives of her missionary parents in British East Africa in 1919. When cruel neighbors take her in, Rachel suspects their intentions may not be honest. Soon, Rachel becomes entangled in a shocking and nefarious plot that takes her away from her beloved East Africa on a lonely and treacherous journey across the ocean. read more ...

  • Looking at the Moon by Kit Pearson

    Sequel to: @The Sky Is Falling . It's 1943, three years after British evacuees Norah and her brother Gavin arrived in Toronto to be "adopted" by Mrs. Ogilvie for the duration of the war.



  • The Midnight Train Home by Erika Tamar

    Deirdre O'Rourke and her brothers Sean and Jimmy are sent by their mum from their tenement existence to ride one of the last of the orphan trains west, in the hope of finding a good family. Instead, all three are separated, and Deirdre is placed with a straitlaced minister and his wife, who she soon learns adopted her out of pity. Deirdre can only hope that someday she will be reunited w read more ...

  • Mieko and the Fifth Treasure by Eleanor Coerr

    /Eleanor Coerr "The devastating effects of the bombing of Japan . . . are evoked here in the stirring story of Mieko, a gifted calligrapher and artist. After her hand is badly injured in the bombing . . . Mieko fears she has lost the fifth treasure, the 'beauty in the heart' which holds the key to her artwork. . . . a sensitively and beautifully crafted story . . . a vivid portr read more ...

  • The Moon Bridge by Marcia Savin

    The friendship between San Francisco girls Mitzi Fujimoto and Ruthie Fox is changed when World War II begins and Mitzi and her family are forced to go into an internment camp.



  • My Wartime Summers by Jane Cutler

    Ellen Parker grows up during four memorable and bittersweet summers.



  • Neela: Victory Song by Chitra Divakaruni

    As her old sister is about to marry, 12-year-old Neela Sen knows her parents will soon arrange a betrothal for her. But when her father goes to Calcutta to secretly investigate India's growing independence movement and doesn't return, Neela realizes she must do the unexpected--take matters into her own hands. Illustrations.



  • Nowhere to Call Home by Cynthia DeFelice

    A Depression-era adventure from a master storyteller Tramping is for people with nothing to lose and nowhere to call home. Twelve-year-old Frances Elizabeth Barrow thinks that describes her when she clips her hair and, disguised as a boy, "flips" a train west. Left a penniless orphan after her father's bankruptcy and subsequent suicide, Frances is sure that hoboing is better th read more ...

  • Pearl Harbor Is Burning! A Story of World War II by Kathleen Kudlinski

    In 1941, Frank meets Kenji, a Japanese-American boy who lives in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, where Frank and his family have just moved. But then the unthinkable happens--Pearl Harbor is bombed by the Japanese. Can Frank and Kenji still be friends? "A good springboard for thoughts and discussion of perennial, increasingly visible issues".--Kirkus Reviews.



  • Penny from Heaven by Jennifer L. Holm

    It’s1953 and 11-year-old Penny dreams of a summer of butter pecan ice cream, swimming, and baseball. But nothing’s that easy in Penny’s family. For starters, she can’t go swimming because her mother’s afraid she’ll catch polio at the pool. To make matters worse, her favorite uncle is living in a car. Her Nonny cries every time her father’s name is me read more ...

  • Play to the Angel by Maurine Dahlberg

    A budding pianist will not be stopped, even by Nazis In February 1938, in Vienna, twelve-year-old Greta Radky is devastated to learn that her mother plans to sell the family piano. Greta's brother, a concert pianist, died the previous April, and her mother thinks of the piano as his. But Greta is an equally committed musician, and when she meets a mysterious piano teacher who agrees to w read more ...

  • A Pocket Full of Seeds by Marilyn Sachs

    During World War II in occupied France, a young Jewish girl returns from an overnight visit with a friend to find her family has disappeared.



  • Purely Rosie Pearl by Patricia Cochrane

    In 1936 twelve-year-old Rosie Pearl Bush and her family of migrants endure the hardships of the Great Depression as they find work picking fruit in the California Valley.



  • The Quilt by Gary Paulsen

    1944. Wartime. A six-year-old boy goes to spend the summer with his grandmother Alida in a small town near the Canadian border. With the men all gone off to fight, the women are left to run the farms. There’s plenty for the boy to do—trying to help with the chores, getting to know the dog, and the horses, cows, pigs, and chickens. But when his cousin Kristina goes into labor, he  read more ...

  • Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor

    "The vivid story of a black family whose warm ties to each other and their land give them strength to defy rural Southern racism during the Depression. . . . Entirely through its own internal development, the novel shows the rich inner rewards of black pride, love, and independence despite the certainty of outer defeat." -Booklist (starred review)* Newbery Medal Award * American Bo read more ...

  • Ruthie's Gift by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

    Set in a small Indiana farming community at the start of World War I, this is the heartwarming and gently humorous story of Ruthie, an 8-year-old tomboy who develops a stronger sense of self and selflessness during a particularly dramatic year in her life: the year her sixth brother is born, the year she makes her first friends (twin girls), the year she almost dies of pneumonia, the year th read more ...

  • The Sky Is Falling by Barbara Corcoran

    In Boston during the early days of the Great Depression, Annah's affluent lifestyle comes to an abrupt end when her father loses his banking job and Annah is sent to live with her aunt on a New Hampshire island where she meets a destitute but spunky girl named Dodie.



  • The Sky Is Falling by Kit Pearson

    In the summer of 1940 as the war in Europe begins to intensify, a reluctant ten-year-old Norah and her five-year-old brother Gavin are sent by their parents to safety in Canada where to Norah's dismay they are taken in by the rich Ogilvie family.



  • Spying on Miss Muller by Eve Bunting

    Before World War II began, Jessie Drumm and her friends at Alveara boarding school in Belfast liked their German teacher, Miss Muller. But after Jessie sees the teacher climbing to the roof at night, she and the others wonder if Miss Muller is a secret agent, signaling the enemy. Hoping to prove her favorite teacher's innocence, Jessie agrees to help spy on her. The escalating war, Jessi read more ...

  • Stepping on the Cracks by Mary Downing Hahn

    In 1944, when her brother is overseas fighting in World War II, eleven-year-old Margaret changes her mind about the school bully, Gordy, after she discovers he is hiding his own brother, a deserter.



  • A Thousand Never Evers by Shana Burg

    IN KUCKACHOO, MISSISSIPPI, 1963, Addie Ann Pickett worships her brother Elias and follows in his footsteps by attending the black junior high school. But when her careless act leads to her brother’s disappearance and possible murder, Addie Ann, Mama, and Uncle Bump struggle with not knowing if he’s dead or alive. Then a good deed meant to unite Kuckachoo sets off a chain of explo read more ...

  • Time of Fire by Robert Westall

    When a German bomb kills his mother during World War II, Sonny Prudhoe's world is torn to pieces, and Sonny begins a journey to understanding war -- and personal victory.



  • Tough choices: a story of the Vietnam War by Nancy Antle

    Samantha finds herself torn by her loyalty to her two brothers, one a soldier recently returned from the war in Vietnam and the other a warprotester.



  • Treasures in the dust by Tracey Porter

    Eleven-year-old Annie and her friend Violet tell of the hardships endured by their families when dust storms, drought, and the Great Depression hit rural Oklahoma.



  • The Victory Garden by Lee Kochenderfer

    It’s 1943, and everyone says the war will be over soon—World War II, that is—but Teresa Marks wonders exactly when that day will come. Her older brother, Jeff, is a fighter pilot doing his bit somewhere out there in the sky. Teresa worries about him, hoping he will get home to Kansas safely. As a way of speeding Jeff’s return, Teresa and her dad plant victory gardens. read more ...

  • Walking to the Bus-Rider Blues by Harriette Robinet

    Twelve-year-old Alfa Merryfield, his older sister, and their grandmother struggle for rent money, food, and their dignity as they participate in the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott in the summer of 1956.



  • Watson’s Go to Birmingham - 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis

    A wonderful middle-grade novel narrated by Kenny, 9, about his middle-class black family, the Weird Watsons of Flint, Michigan. When Kenny's 13-year-old brother, Byron, gets to be too much trouble, they head South to Birmingham to visit Grandma, the one person who can shape him up. And they happen to be in Birmingham when Grandma's church is blown up.



  • When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr

    Nine-year-old Anna was too busy with schoolwork and friends in 1933 to take much notice of Adolf Hitler's rise to power in her native Germany. But when her father is suddenly, unaccountably missing, and her family flees Berlin in secrecy, Anna is forced to learn the skills needed to be a refugee and finds she's much more resilient than she thought.



  • When Mack Came Back by Brad Strickland

    A howl in the woods on a cold winter day changes Maury Painter's life. Tangled within the thorny vines a dog lies whimpering.It's 1943, and times are tough and lean on his family's Georgia farm. As Maury struggles to fill the place of his absent brother, who's off fighting in the war, he is determined to keep the dog he calls Mack. Mack is there for him, steadfast and true. B read more ...

  • When the Soldiers Were Gone by Vera Propp

    At first Henk didn't believe what his Papa was saying. That the two strangers standing in the front room are his real parents, and now that the war is over they have come to take him back. He is told his name isn't even Henk, it's really Benjamin, and he's Jewish. But all Henk can remember is living on the farm with Papa, Mama, Miep, and Pieter. How can he possibly be expecte read more ...

  • Wish Me Luck by James Heneghan

    While on an ocean voyage to Canada to escape the air raids in his Liverpool home, twelve-year-old Jaimie Monaghan faces another kind of life-threatening situation.



  • The Year of Miss Agnes by Kirkpatrick Hill

    It's 1948 and ten-year-old Fred has just watched her teacher leave -- another in a long line of teachers who have left the village because the smell of fish was too strong, the way of life too hard. Will another teacher come to the small Athabascan village on the Koyukuk River to teach Fred and her friends in the one-room schoolhouse? Will she stay, or will she hate the smell of fish, to read more ...

  • You come to Yokum by Carol Otis Hurst

    In the winter of 1920, everything changed. Frank and his family got a Model T and drove to the Berkshires to try to make a success of a vacation/hunting lodge at Yokum Pond. There are fun adventures and incidents with invited guests and uninvited animal visitors, including the mysterious "horrible huge." The rural setting and less-than-receptive neighbors fail to deter Frank's  read more ...

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