Top 20 (Fall 2011)
By Gennifer Choldenko
Grade(s): 5+
A twelve–year–old boy named Moose moves to Alcatraz Island in 1935 when guards' families were housed there, where he has to contend with his extraordinary new environment in addition to life with his autistic sister.
Teen Genre 5th & 6th Graders (And Tweens Too!)
Kids Genre Books for Boys, Historical Fiction, Top 20 (Fall 2011), Top 20 (Fall 2011)
By Theodore Taylor
Grade(s): 4+
When the freighter on which they are traveling is torpedoed by a German submarine during World War II, a twelve–year–old white boy, blinded by a blow on the head, and an old Negro are stranded on a small desert island in the Caribbean where the boy acquires a new kind of vision, courage, and love from his old companion.
By Avi
Grade(s): 4+
Thirteen–year–old Jonathan goes off to fight in the Revolutionary War and discovers the real war is being fought within himself.
By Linda Buckley–Archer
Series Gideon Trilogy
Grade(s): 5
Ignored by his father and sent to Derbyshire for the weekend, twelve–year–old Peter and his new friend, Kate, are accidentally transported back in time to 1763 England where they are befriended by a reformed cutpurse.
By Kirby Larson
Grade(s): 5+
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.
By Bette Bao Lord
Grade(s): 4+
In 1947, a Chinese child comes to Brooklyn where she becomes Americanized at school, in her apartment building, and by her love for baseball.
By Valerie Tripp
Series American Girls
Grade(s): 3+
Josefina and her sisters distrust learning to read and write, as well as other changes their Tía Dolores is bringing to the household, because they fear they will lose their memories of their mother.
By Walter Dean Myers
Series My Name is America
Grade(s): 4
A seventeen–year–old soldier from central Virginia records his experiences in a journal as his regiment takes part in the D–Day invasion of Normandy and subsequent battles to liberate France.
By Barry Denenberg
Series My Name Is America
Grade(s): 4+
William, a twelve–year–old orphan, writes of his experiences in pre–Revolutionary War Boston where he joins the cause of the patriots who are opposed to the British rule.
By Donna Jo Napoli
Grade(s): 4+
In 1892, Dom, a nine–year old stowaway from Naples, Italy, arrives in New York and must learn to survive the perils of street life in the big city.
By Patricia Reilly Giff
Grade(s): 4+
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.
By Laura Ingalls Wilder
Series Little House
Grade(s): 3+
A year in the life of two young girls growing up on the Wisconsin frontier, as they help their mother with the daily chores, enjoy their father's stories and singing, and share special occasions when they get together with relatives or neighbors.
By Karen Cushman
Grade(s): 5+
In medieval England, a nameless, homeless girl is taken in by a sharp–tempered midwife, and in spite of obstacles and hardship, eventually gains the three things she most wants: a full belly, a contented heart, and a place in this world.
By Jerry Spinelli
Grade(s): 5+
Captures the hardships and cruelty of life in the ghettos of Warsaw during the Nazi occupation of World War II, through the eyes of a Jewish orphan who must use all his wits and courage to survive unimaginable events and circumstances.
When Sam Meeker leaves his home in Redding, Connecticut, a town loyal to the king, to fight the rebel army, he places his family in a very difficult position.
Teen Genre Classical Literature, Fiction, For Middle Schoolers
Kids Genre Historical Fiction, Top 20 (Fall 2011)
By Lois Lowry
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.
Genre Teen Books for Adults, Modern Era, Historical Fiction, Holocaust Fiction
Teen Genre Classical Literature, Fiction, For Middle Schoolers
Kids Genre Historical Fiction, Top 20 (Fall 2011)
By Jennifer Holm
Grade(s): 5
As she turns twelve during the summer of 1953, Penny gains new insights into herself and her family while also learning a secret about her father's death.
By Elizabeth George Speare
Grade(s): 4+
Left alone to guard the family's wilderness home in eighteenth–century Maine (1768), a boy is hard–pressed to survive until local Indians teach him their skills.
By William H. Armstrong
Grade(s): 4+
Angry and humiliated when his sharecropper father is jailed for stealing food for his family, a young black boy grows in courage and understanding by learning to read and through his relationship with his devoted dog Sounder.
By Margaret Peterson Haddix
Grade(s): 5+
In 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.
By Patricia Reilly Giff
Grade(s): 4+
In the shadow of the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, eighth–graders and new neighbors Bird Mallon and Thomas Neary make some decisions about what they want to do with their lives.
By Christopher Paul Curtis
Grade(s): 5+
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.
By Cynthia DeFelice
Grade(s): 4+
Alone in the frontier wilderness in the winter of 1839 while his father is recovering from an injury, eleven–year–old Nathan runs afoul of the renegade killer known as Weasel and makes a surprising discovery about the concept of revenge.
During the 1967 school year, on Wednesday afternoons when all his classmates go to either Catechism or Hebrew school, seventh–grader Holling Hoodhood stays in Mrs. Baker's classroom where they read the plays of William Shakespeare and Holling learns much of value about the world he lives in.
Teen Genre Coming of Age Fiction, Historical Fiction, Realistic Fiction
Kids Genre Historical Fiction, Top 20 (Fall 2011)
By Judith Kerr
Grade(s): 5+
Recounts the adventures of a nine–year–old Jewish girl and her family in the early 1930's as they travel from Germany to England.
By Kristiana Gregory
Series Dear America
Grade(s): 4+
Eleven–year–old Abigail presents a diary account of life in Valley Forge from December 1777 to July 1778 as General Washington prepares his troops to fight the British.