Historical Fiction

What I Saw and How I Lied, by Judy Blundell: In 1947, with her jovial stepfather Joe back from the war and family life returning to normal, teenage Evie, smitten by the handsome young ex-GI who seems to have a secret hold on Joe, finds herself caught in a complicated web of lies whose devastating outcome change her life and that of her family forever.

I am Rembrandt’s Daughter, by Lynn Cullen: In Amsterdam in the mid-1600s, Cornelia's life as the illegitimate child of renowned painter Rembrandt is marked by plague, poverty, and despair at ever earning her father's love, until she sees hope for a better future in the eyes of a wealthy suitor.

Daniel Half Human and the Good Nazi, by David 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.

Annexed, by Sharon Dogar:  Everyone knows about Anne Frank, but what about the boy who was also trapped there with her?  As Peter and Anne become closer and closer in their confined quarters, how can they make sense of what they see happening around them?  Anne's diary ends on August 4, 1944, but Peter's story takes us on, beyond their betrayal and into the Nazi death camps.  He details with the reality of day to day survival in Auschwitz - and ultimately the horrific fates of the Annex's occupants.

Copper Sun, by Sharon M. Draper: Two fifteen-year-old girls--one a slave and the other an indentured servant--escape their Carolina plantation and try to make their way to Fort Moses, Florida, a Spanish colony that gives sanctuary to slaves.

The Red Necklace: A Story of the French Revolution, by Sally Gardner:  In the late eighteenth-century, Sido, the twelve-year-old daughter of a self-indulgent marquis, and Yann, a fourteen-year-old Gypsy orphan raised to perform in a magic show, face a common enemy at the start of the French Revolution.

Troy, by Adele Geras: Told from the point of view of the women of Troy, portrays the last weeks of the Trojan War, when women are sick of tending the wounded, men are tired of fighting, and bored gods and goddesses find ways to stir things up.

Wicked Girls, by Stephanie Hemphill: A fictionalized account, told in verse, of the Salem witch trials, told from the perspective of three young women living in Salem in 1692--Mercy Lewis, Margaret Walcott, and Ann Putnam, Jr.

Incantation, by Alice Hoffman: During the Spanish Inquisition, sixteen-year-old Estrella, brought up a Catholic, discovers her family's true Jewish identity, and when their secret is betrayed by Estrella's best friend, the consequences are tragic.

Newes from the Dead, by Mary Hooper: In 1650, while Robert, a young medical student, steels himself to assist with her dissection, twenty-two-year-old housemaid Anne Green recalls her life as she lies in her coffin, presumed dead after being hanged for murdering her child that was, in fact, stillborn.

Resistance, by Carla Jablonski (Graphic novel):  Paul and Marie's bucolic French town is almost untouched by the ravages of WWII. When the Jewish parents of their friend Henri disappear, and Henri goes into hiding, Paul and Marie realize they must take a stand.

My Beautiful Hippie, by Jane Nichols Lynch: Fifteen-year-old Joanne, raised in San Francisco's Haight District, becomes involved with Martin, a hippy, and various aspects of the late 1960s cultural revolution despite her middle-class upbringing.

The Apothecary, by Maile Meloy: Follows a fourteen-year-old American girl whose life unexpectedly transforms when she moves to London in 1952 and gets swept up in a race to save the world from nuclear war.

Marie, Dancing, by Carolyn Meyer: A fictionalized autobiography of Marie Van Goethem, the impoverished student from the Paris Opéra ballet school who became the model for Edgar Degas's famous sculpture, "The Little Dancer.”

Lara’s Gift, by Annemarie O’Brien: In 1914 Russia, Lara is being groomed by her father to be the next kennel steward for the Count's borzoi dogs unless her mother bears a son, but her visions, although suppressed by her father, seem to suggest she has special bond with the dogs.

Life: An Exploded Diagram, by Mal Peet: In 1960s Norfolk, England, seventeen-year-old Clem Ackroyd lives with his mother and grandmother in a tiny cottage, but his life is transformed when he falls in love with the daughter of a wealthy farmer in this tale that flashes back through the stories of three generations.

Pirates! The True and Remarkable Adventures of Minerva Sharpe and Nancy Kington, Female Pirates, by Celia Rees: In 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.

Three Rivers Rising: A Novel of the Johnstown Flood, by Jame Richards: Sixteen-year-old Celestia is a wealthy member of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, where she meets and falls in love with Peter, a hired hand who lives in the valley, and by the time of the torrential rains that lead to the disastrous Johnstown flood of 1889, she has been disowned and is staying with him in Johnstown.

Keeping Corner, by Kashmira Sheth: In India in the 1940s, thirteen-year-old Leela's happy, spoiled childhood ends when her husband since age nine, whom she barely knows, dies, leaving her a widow whose only hope of happiness could come from Mahatma Ghandi's social and political reforms.

For What It’s Worth, by Janet Tashjian: Living in Los Angeles' Laurel Canyon neighborhood, fourteen-year-old Quinn's life has been consumed by music and the famous musicians who live nearby, but in 1971, his first girlfriend, a substitute teacher, and a draft dodger help open his eyes about the Vietnam War.

Code Name Verity, by Elizabeth Wein: In 1943, a British fighter plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France and the survivor tells a tale of friendship, war, espionage, and great courage as she relates what she must to survive while keeping secret all that she can.