Historical

2008 Newbery Medal winner.
96 pages, Grades 4-7
related subjects:  9th-13th Century

A retelling of the Shakespeare play Macbeth.
281 pages, Grades 8 and up
related subjects:  Murder Mysteries, Witches, 9th-13th Century

In 1299 in England, fourteen-year-old Elenor finds her betrothal to an ambitious lord's son launching her on a memorable pilgrimage to far-off Spain.
310 pages, Grades 6 and up
related subjects:  9th-13th Century

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.
224 pages, Grades 5-7
related subjects:  9th-13th Century

On a visit to Florence, 13-year-old Elisabetta catches the eye of the great Leonardo da Vinci, and falls for a boy named Giuliano de Medici, but it is a dangerous time for the Medici's. As tragedy and chaos threaten their happiness, "Monna Lisa" faces the bittersweet truth of love.
272 pages, Grades 6-8
related subjects:  14th-15th Century, Love

Fifteen-year-old Giacomo, servant to Leonardo da Vinci, helps his procrastinating master finish painting The Last Supper while also trying to discover who his real parents are in fifteenth-century Milan, Italy.
390 pages, Grades 5-8
related subjects:  14th-15th Century

In 1452, a man appears at Gutenberg's home with a mysterious chest which can only be opened when the fangs of its serpent's-head clasp taste blood. Centuries later, in an Oxford library, a boy touches a strange book and feels something pierce his finger. The book is blank, but then words begin to appear on the page, words only the boy can see.
400 pages, Grades 4-7
related subjects:  14th-15th Century, Museum Mysteries, Secret Codes

In Korea in 1473, 11-year-old Young-sup overcomes his rivalry with his older brother Kee-sup, who as the first-born son receives special treatment from their father, and combines his kite-flying skill with Kee-sup's kite-making skill in an attempt to win the New Year kite-fighting competition.
144 pages, Grades 4-6
related subjects:  Korea, Brothers, 14th-15th Century

In 14th Century 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.
128 pages, Grade 4-7
related subjects:  14th-15th Century, Homelessness

14-year-old Donata, disguised as a boy, sneaks out of her noble family's house to roam the streets of late sixteenth-century Venice.
275 pages, Grades 5 and up
related subjects:  16th Century

*Video Booktalk*
Nell is a wild child: friend of fairies and piskies...and, some say, a witch. Grace is everything Nell is not. She is the Puritan minister's daughter: beautiful and refined, innocent and sweet...to those who think they know her. But she is hiding a secret that will bring everlasting shame to her family should it ever come to light.
263 pages, Grades 7 and up
related subjects:  17th Century, Fairies, Mean girls, Witches

In 17th century London, Coriander, a girl who has inherited magic from her mother, must find a way to use this magic in order to save herself and an inhabitant of the fairy world where her mother was born.
280 pages, Grades 4 and up
related subjects:  17th century, Fairies, Witches

Two sisters, aged ten and twelve, are accused of witchcraft in Andover, Massachussetts in 1692, and await trial in a miserable prison while their mother desperately searches for some way to obtain their freedom.
211 pages, Grades 5 and up
related subjects:  17th century, Sisters, Witches

In 17th century England, Susanna, a young Quaker servant girl, falls in love with seventeen-year-old Will, an apprentice from a wealthy family. With Quakers being persecuted and imprisoned, can their bond survive, no matter what?
304 pages, Grades 6 and up
related subjects:  17th Century, Love

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.
261 pages, Grades 7 and up
related subjects:  17th Century, Witches

Impatient with the constraints put on her as an aristocratic girl living in Korea during the seventeenth century, twelve-year-old Jade Blossom determines to see beyond her small world.
112 pages, Grades 4-6
related subjects:  Korea, 17th Century

In 1687 in Connecticut, Kit Tyler, feeling out of place in the Puritan household of her aunt, befriends an old woman considered a witch by the community and suddenly finds herself standing trial for witchcraft.
256 pages, Grades 4 and up
related subjects:  17th century, Witches

A mysterious stranger who can spin straw into gold promises to make Charlotte's money problems disappear, but what does he want in return?
400 pages, Grades 7 and up
related subjects:  Fairy Tales, 18th Century, Ghosts

Part of the Royal Diaries series. Fourteen-year-old Sophia travels to Russia where she is renamed Catherine and married to the Empress's son.
176 pages, Grades 4-7
related subjects:  18th Century, Princesses, Russia

The true story of Washington's use of espionage in gathering intelligence to defeat the British in the Revolutionary War.
192 pages, Grades 5 and up
related subjects:  18th Century, Spies

Nancy Kington, daughter of a rich merchant, suddenly orphaned when her father dies, is sent to live on her family's plantation in Jamaica. Disgusted by the treatment of the slaves and her brother's willingness to marry her off, she and one of the slaves, Minerva, run away and join a band of pirates.
340 pages, Grades 6 and up
related subjects:  18th Century, Pirates, Sea Adventures

1793, Philadelphia. The largest city in North America is devastated by an incurable disease, cause unknown. This true story describes the illness and the toll it took on the city's residents.
256 pages, Grades 6 and up
related subjects:  18th Century, Disease Epidemics

Book 3 of the High Seas Trilogy.
256 pages, Grades 5-8
related subjects:  18th Century, Pirates, Sea Adventures

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.
256 pages, Grades 6 and up
related subjects:  18th Century, Disease Epidemics

Book 2 of the High Seas Trilogy. In eighteenth-century England, after his father buys a schooner called the Dragon, sixteen-year-old John sets out to sail it from Kent to London and becomes involved in a dangerous smuggling scheme.
208 pages, Grades 5-8
related subjects:  18th Century, Pirates, Sea Adventures

*Video Booktalk*
Book 1 of the High Seas Trilogy. Shipwrecked after a storm, fourteen-year-old John attempts to save his father and himself from the murderous community who lure storm-tossed ships to crash on rocks of their shore so they can steal their loot.
224 pages, Grades 5-8
related subjects:  18th Century, Pirates, Sea Adventures

On San Francisco Bay in 1866, when a mysterious shipwreck survivor - a young, feverish boy who claims to be a pirate - washes into their cove, secrets that have been tranquilly hidden across generations are suddenly threatened.
207 pages, Grades 5-7
related subjects:  Pirates, 19th Century

In 1859, 11-year-old Elijah Freeman, the first free-born child in Buxton, Canada, which is a haven for slaves fleeing the South, uses his wits to try to bring justice to the lying preacher who stole money that was saved to buy a family's freedom.
288 pages, Grades 4-7
related subjects:  19th Century, Funny, Slavery

Sequel to A Great and Terrible Beauty and Rebel Angels.
448 pages, Grades 8 and up
related subjects:  19th Century, ESP

Book 2 of the Solomon Snow series.
256 pages, Grades 3-6
related subjects:  Foundlings, Funny, 19th Century

*Video Booktalk*
Three teens and a curator of unclassifiable artifacts at the British Museum match wits with a madman determined to reanimate the dead, both humans and dinosaurs.
336 pages, Grades 6 and up
related subjects:  19th Century, Museum Mysteries, Zombies, Evil Scientists

Tom tries to survive on the rough streets of early-nineteenth-century London.
208 pages, Grades 6-8
related subjects:  19th Century, Boy Bullies

Sequel to A Great and Terrible Beauty.
560 pages, Grades 8 and up
related subjects:  19th Century, ESP

A cabin boy on a pirate ship finds himself in San Diego in 1846 as war breaks out between the United States and Mexico.
194 pages, Grades 3-6
related subjects:  Mexico, Pirates, 19th Century, Wild West Pioneers

*Video Booktalk*
Ten-year-old Solomon Snow, a foundling who was discovered with a distinctive silver spoon in his mouth, sets out to find his parents and receives help along the way from an aspiring writer, a precocious young circus star, and several Orphans.
289 pages, Grades 3-6
related subjects:  Foundlings, Funny, 19th Century

*Video Booktalk*
Twelve-year-old Annika was abandoned as a baby and found by two kind servants in a professor's house. They took her in and loved her. Then one day a glamorous stranger arrives, claiming to be Annika's mother. Annika is no servant, she learns, but an aristocrat whose true home is an ancient castle. But at crumbling Spittal, Annika discovers that all is not as it seems in the lives of her newfound family.
416 pages, Grades 4 and up
related subjects:  Foundlings, Mothers, 19th Century

After the mysterious suicide of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off to boarding school in England where she discovers her own unexplainable power.
416 pages, Grades 7 and up
related subjects:  Mean Girls, 19th Century, ESP

When a terrible blight attacks Ireland's potato crop in 1845, twelve-year-old Nory's courage and ingenuity help her family and neighbors survive.
176 pages, Grades 4-7
related subjects:  19th Century, Famine, Ireland

In 1849, twelve-year-old California Morning Whipple, who renames herself Lucy, is distraught when her mother moves the family from Massachusetts to a rough California mining town.
352 pages, Grades 4-6
related subjects:  19th Century, Wild West Pioneers

A true account of Chicago's Great Fire of 1871.
144 pages, Grades 5 and up
related subjects:  Fires, 19th Century

Sequel to Mountain Light. When he accidentally kills a Manchu, a fifteen-year-old Chinese boy is sent to America to join his father and other Chinese working to build a tunnel for the transcontinental railroad through the Sierra Nevada mountains in 1867.
352 pages, Grades 5 and up
related subjects:  China, 19th Century, Wild West Pioneers, Racism

As the only passenger, and the only female, on a transatlantic voyage in 1832, thirteen-year-old Charlotte finds herself accused of murder.
240 pages, Grades 5-7
related subjects:  Sea Adventures, 19th Century, Murder Mysteries

Book 1 of the Little House series. 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.
224 pages, Grades 3-5
related subjects:  Sisters, 19th Century, Wild West Pioneers

When orphaned Mary comes to live at her uncle's house, she finds it full of secrets. At night, she hears the sound of crying down one of the corridors. Outside she meets a boy who can charm animals. Then, with the help of a friendly robin, Mary discovers a secret garden which has been forgotten for years.
384 pages, Grades 5-8
related subjects:  19th Century

Part of the Royal Diaries series. While her father is in hiding after attempts on his life, twelve-year-old Cleopatra records in her diary how she fears for her own safety and hopes to survive to become Queen of Egypt some day.
224 pages, Grades 4-7
related subjects:  Ancient Egypt, Princesses

Part of the Time Warp Trio series. The Time Warp Trio ends up in Ancient Egypt.
80 pages, Grades 3-5
related subjects:  Funny, Ancient Egypt, Time Travel

Hermes, Prince of Thieves and son of Zeus, relates why the seasons change, the history of the Trojan War, his friendship with Pegasus, and many more adventures.
229 pages, Grades 6 and up
related subjects:  Ancient Greece, Mythology

The adventures of Odysseus, including his encounters with the evil Cyclops, the monsters Scylla and Charybdis, the beautiful sorceress Circe, and the vengeful god of the sea, Poseidon.
128 pages, Grades 5-7
related subjects:  Ancient Greece, Mythology

When her father commands that she produce an heir, the huntress Atalanta gives her suitors a seemingly impossible task in order to uphold her pledge of chastity, as the gods of ancient Greece look on.
192 pages, Grades 6 and up
related subjects:  Ancient Greece, Mythology

Atalanta, Andromeda, and Psyche, three female characters in Greek mythology, tell the stories of their marriages.
200 pages, Grades 6 and up
related subjects:  Ancient Greece, Mythology

Fourteen-year-old Princess Xenodice tries to prevent the death of her half-brother, the Minotaur, at the hands of the Athenian prince, Theseus, who is aided by Icarus, Daedalus, and her sister Ariadne.
194 pages, Grades 6 and up
related subjects:  Ancient Greece, Mythology

Anaxandra lives in the castle with King Menelaus and his wife Helen, until Trojan prince Paris comes and has an affair with Helen that starts the Trojan War.
264 pages, Grades 6 and up
related subjects:  Ancient Greece, Mythology

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.
352 pages, Grades 8 and up
related subjects:  Ancient Greece, Love, Mythology, Sisters

Presents the story of Odysseus's epic journey through the eyes of his faithful wife Penelope, the sorceress Circe, the goddess Athena, and his old nanny Eurycleia.
160 pages, Grades 6 and up
related subjects:  Ancient Greece, Mythology

Part of the Time Warp Trio series. As they are about to go on stage, Joe, Fred, and Sam are transported back to the time of Zeus and the other gods in Greek mythology, who, strangely enough, behave like the characters in the trio's class play.
80 pages, Grades 3-5
related subjects:  Ancient Greece, Funny, Mythology, Time Travel

*Video Booktalk*
The gods grant immortality to the mermaid Sirena when she rescues a human man from the sea and they fall in love, but his mortality creates great conflict between love and honor when he is called to defend Greece in the Trojan War.
210 pages, Grades 6 and up
related subjects:  Ancient Greece, Love, Mermaids & Selkies, Mythology

The events surrounding the famous battle between the Greeks and the Trojans are told from the points of view of two women, the beautiful Helen and the prophetic Cassandra.
208 pages, Grades 6 and up
related subjects:  Ancient Greece, Mythology

A retelling of the adventures of Odysseus on his long voyage home from the Trojan War.
119 pages, Grades 5 and up
related subjects:  Ancient Greece, Mythology

Retells the story of the Trojan War, from the quarrel for the golden apple, and the flight of Helen with Paris, to the destruction of Troy.
151 pages, Grades 5 and up
related subjects:  Ancient Greece, Mythology

The lives of two girls, one a slave and the other her beautiful master, change forever when Mt. Vesuvius erupts.
160 pages, Grades 7 and up
related subjects:  Ancient Rome, Volcanoes

This book shows the destruction of Pompeii by the volcano Mount Vesuvius, the rediscovery of the ruins nearly 1,700 years later, and what daily life was like in this prosperous Roman town in the year 79 A.D. before the explosion.
40 pages, Grades 3-5
related subjects:  Ancient Rome, Volcanoes

On August 24, A.D. 79, Mount Vesuvius began to erupt. Hundreds of years later, archaeological excavations began to unearth what had been buried under layers of volcanic rubble.
48 pages, Grades 4-8
related subjects:  Ancient Rome, Volcanoes

The Roman Empire's richest citizens are relaxing without a care, but their world is about to be destroyed, and only one man is worried. The young engineer Marcus Attilius Primus has just taken charge of the Aqua Augusta, the aqueduct that brings fresh water to a quarter of a million people in nine towns around the Bay of Naples. Springs are failing for the first time in generations, and by the time Marcus discovers why, it is too late.
368 pages, Grades 8 and up
related subjects:  Ancient Rome, Volcanoes

Book 1 of the Roman Mysteries series. In Rome in the year 79 A.D., a group of children from very different backgrounds work together to discover who beheaded a pet dog -- and why.
160 pages, Grades 4-7
related subjects:  Ancient Rome

Part of the Time Warp Trio series. Joe, Fred, and Sam demonstrate some of their favorite professional wrestling moves, including the "Time Warp Trio Blind Ninja Smackdown," when they're transported to ancient Rome and forced to fight as gladiators in the Colosseum.
96 pages, Grades 3-5
related subjects:  Ancient Rome, Funny, Time Travel

When barbarians invade Rome, Miranda and her daughter must find a safe place to hide from the chaos. They make their way through the burning city, collecting motherless kittens as they go.
Grades 3-4
related subjects:  Ancient Rome, Cats

Eager to enlist, fifteen-year-old Charley has a change of heart after experiencing both the physical horrors and mental anguish of Civil War combat.
128 pages, Grades 6 and up
related subjects:  Civil War

Northerners, Southerners, generals, couriers, boys, and worried sisters describe the glory, the horror, the thrill, and the disillusionment of the first battle of the Civil War.
128 pages, Grades 6 and up
related subjects:  Civil War

The 1930s in America will be remembered for twin disasters-the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. This book documents this tumultuous period, beginning with the 1929 stock market crash and continuing with the severe drought in the Midwest, chronicling the everyday struggle for survival by those who lost everything, as well as the mass exodus westward to California on Route 66.
96 pages, Grades 4-7
related subjects:  Great Depression, Poverty, Drought

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.
240 pages, Grades 5-8
related subjects:  Great Depression, Drought

Cassie and her brothers do not understand the racism and discrimination they face as a black family living in Mississippi in the 1930s.
288 pages, Grades 4-7
related subjects:  Great Depression, Poverty, Racism

Based on the true story of the Danish Resistance. When the Germans occupy Denmark in 1940, Bamse and his brother join the Resistance and help rescue Jews from being taken to concentration camps.
192 pages, Grades 4-6
related subjects:  Jewish Holocaust, World War II

Liesel is a foster girl living outside of Munich during World War II. With the help of her foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau.
560 pages, Grades 8 and up
related subjects:  Jewish Holocaust, World War II

A tale of heartbreak, hope, and survival through the bright eyes of a young orphan in Nazi-occupied Warsaw.
224 pages, Grades 4-7
related subjects:  Jewish Holocaust, Survival, World War II, Homelessness

*Video Booktalk*
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.
224 pages, Grades 5 and up
related subjects:  Jewish Holocaust, Survival, World War II

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.
144 pages, Grades 4-7
related subjects:  Jewish Holocaust, World War II

Elaine, the Lady of Shalott tells her version of the King Arthur legend.
394 pages, Grades 7 and up
related subjects:  King Arthur

After inheriting her uncle's homesteading claim in Montana, sixteen-year-old Hattie travels from Iowa in 1917 to make a home for herself, and describes her difficult new life in letters to her old friend fighting the war in Europe.
289 pages, Grades 5-8
related subjects:  World War I, Wild West Pioneers

A cabin boy on a pirate ship finds himself in San Diego in 1846 as war breaks out between the United States and Mexico.
194 pages, Grades 3-6
related subjects:  Mexico, Pirates, 19th Century, Wild West Pioneers

In 1849, twelve-year-old California Morning Whipple, who renames herself Lucy, is distraught when her mother moves the family from Massachusetts to a rough California mining town.
352 pages, Grades 4-6
related subjects:  19th Century, Wild West Pioneers

Sequel to Sarah, Plain and Tall. When a drought tests the commitment of a mail-order bride from Maine to her new home on the prairie, her stepchildren hope they will be able to remain a family.
87 pages, Grades 3-5
related subjects:  Mothers, Wild West Pioneers, Drought

Sequel to Mountain Light. When he accidentally kills a Manchu, a fifteen-year-old Chinese boy is sent to America to join his father and other Chinese working to build a tunnel for the transcontinental railroad through the Sierra Nevada mountains in 1867.
352 pages, Grades 5 and up
related subjects:  China, 19th Century, Wild West Pioneers, Racism

When their father invites a mail-order bride to come live with them in their prairie home, Caleb and Anna are captivated by their new mother and hope that she will stay.
64 pages, Grades 3-5
related subjects:  Mothers, Wild West Pioneers

Book 1 of the Little House series. 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.
224 pages, Grades 3-5
related subjects:  Sisters, 19th Century, Wild West Pioneers

After inheriting her uncle's homesteading claim in Montana, sixteen-year-old Hattie travels from Iowa in 1917 to make a home for herself, and describes her difficult new life in letters to her old friend fighting the war in Europe.
289 pages, Grades 5-8
related subjects:  World War I, Wild West Pioneers

In 1913 Russia, twelve-year-old Katya eagerly anticipates leaving her St. Petersburg home to join her mother, a lady in waiting in the household of Tsar Nicholas II, but the ensuing years bring world war, revolution, and undreamed of changes to her life.
304 pages, Grades 5 and up
related subjects:  Russia, World War I

Based on the true story of the Danish Resistance. When the Germans occupy Denmark in 1940, Bamse and his brother join the Resistance and help rescue Jews from being taken to concentration camps.
192 pages, Grades 4-6
related subjects:  Jewish Holocaust, World War II

Liesel, a foster girl living outside of Munich during World War II, learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement.
560 pages, Grades 8 and up
related subjects:  Jewish Holocaust, World War II

As a Navajo boy at American school, Ned Begay was punished for speaking Navajo, but when war broke out with Japan, the navajo language formed an unbreakbale code that saved many American lives.
240 pages, Grades 6 and up
related subjects:  World War II, Racism

Discusses the events and personalities involved in the momentous Allied invasion of France on June 6, 1944.
61 pages, Grades 4 and up
related subjects:  Survival, World War II

A tale of heartbreak, hope, and survival through the bright eyes of a young orphan in Nazi-occupied Warsaw.
224 pages, Grades 4-7
related subjects:  Jewish Holocaust, Survival, World War II, Homelessness

With national pride and also fear, a brother and sister face the oppressive occupation of Korea by Japan during World War II, which threatens to suppress Korean culture entirely.
208 pages, Grades 5 and up
related subjects:  Japan, Korea, World War II

A thirteen-year-old Vietnamese orphan raised in rural France by her aging "Grand-Pierre" falls in love for the first time, and discovers old family secrets from World War II.
224 pages, Grades 7 and up
related subjects:  World War II, Love, Grandparents

*Video Booktalk*
First-person accounts from both American and Japanese survivors combines with dramatic archival images to paint a vivid portrait of what it was like to have witnessed, participated in, and lived through the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
64 pages, Grades 4-8
related subjects:  World War II

*Video Booktalk*
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.
144 pages, Grades 7 and up
related subjects:  Survival, World War II

*Video Booktalk*
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.
224 pages, Grades 5 and up
related subjects:  Jewish Holocaust, Survival, World War II

Describes the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, particularly as it affects Sachi, who becomes one of the Hiroshima Maidens.
64 pages, Grades 4 and up
related subjects:  Japan, Nuclear Weapons, World War II

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.
144 pages, Grades 4-7
related subjects:  Jewish Holocaust, World War II

On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima was destroyed by the first atom bomb ever dropped on a city. Told through the memories of survivors, this book tells what happened on that day.
160 pages, Grades 7 and up
related subjects:  Japan, Nuclear Weapons, World War II

In the winter of 1940, Nazi troops parachuted into Peter's tiny Norwegian village and held it and its treasure captive. Nobody thought the Nazis could be defeated, but Peter and the other children risked their lives and outwitted the Nazis, sending all the town's gold to America.
156 pages, Grades 3-6
related subjects:  World War II