American Historical Fiction

Picture Books | Younger Fiction | Intermediate Fiction |
Young Adult Fiction | Poetry | Nonfiction

The books recommended below were published within the last several years. Grade levels are only suggestions; the individual child is the real criterion.

Picture Books

The Buffalo Storm written by Katherine Applegate, illustrated by Jan Ormerod (Clarion)
A young girl who is “not afraid of anything / (except maybe storms)” travels the Oregon Trail with her family. Grade level: K–3. 32 pages.

The Flag Maker written by Susan Campbell Bartoletti, illustrated by Claire A. Nivola (Houghton)
During the War of 1812, a Baltimore girl helps her mother sew the flag that Francis Scott Key later immortalized as the Star-Spangled Banner. Grade level: 4–6. 32 pages.

Night Running: How James Escaped with the Help of His Faithful Dog written by Elisa Carbone, illustrated by E. B. Lewis (Knopf)
Allegedly based on a real incident, this dramatic escape story tells how James, a young runaway slave, is unexpectedly aided by his dog Zeus. Grade level: K–3. 40 pages.

Sky Boys: How They Built the Empire State Building written by Deborah Hopkinson, illustrated by James E. Ransome (Schwartz & Wade/Random)
In a New York City burdened by the Great Depression, a magnificent new skyscraper rises as a powerful symbol of hope. Grade level: 1–4. 48 pages.

Jackie’s Bat written by Marybeth Lorbiecki, illustrated by Brian Pinkney (Simon)
A (fictional) white batboy for the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers is reluctant to serve Jackie Robinson, the major league’s first-ever African American player. Grade level: 1–4. 40 pages.

Squirrel and John Muir written and illustrated by Emily Arnold McCully (Farrar)
Tomboy Floy Hutchings tags along with naturalist John Muir as he explores Yosemite Valley in the 1860s. Grade level: K–3. 40 pages.

Don’t Forget Winona written by Jeanne Whitehouse Peterson, illustrated by Kimberly Bulcken Root (Cotler/HarperCollins)
Sarah and her Oklahoma family head west in 1937 to escape the Dust Bowl. Grade level: 1–4. 32 pages.

Mudball written and illustrated by Matt Tavares (Candlewick)
A muscular yarn about a legendary home run hit during the early days of professional baseball. Grade level: K–3. 32 pages.

Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-ins written by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Jerome Lagarrigue (Dial)
An eight-year-old girl observes as civil rights activists work to integrate lunch counters in Greensboro, North Carolina. Grade level: K–4. 32 pages.

Coming On Home Soon written by Jacqueline Woodson, illustrated by E. B. Lewis (Putnam)
When Mama goes north to earn money during World War II, Ada Ruth and Grandma stay behind and try to be brave. Grade level: K–3. 32 pages.

Younger Fiction
Suggested grade level for each entry: 1–3

The Schoolchildren’s Blizzard written by Marty Rhodes Figley, illustrated by Shelly O. Haas (Carolrhoda)
A Nebraska schoolteacher leads her pupils to safety during the deadly blizzard of 1888. 48 pages.

At Home in a New Land written and illustrated by Joan Sandin (HarperCollins)
Young Carl Erik, a Swedish immigrant, and his family meet up with relatives in Minnesota in this gentle yet balanced view of nineteenth century homesteading life. 64 pages.

Intermediate Fiction
Suggested grade level for each entry: 4–6

Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis (Scholastic)
Elijah, the first child born free in Underground Railroad–era Buxton, a Canadian refuge for freed slaves, grows up over a series of increasingly heart-rending lessons, tests, and adventures. 341 pages.

The Loud Silence of Francine Green by Karen Cushman (Clarion)
Once happy to fly under the radar at her conservative Catholic school in 1949 Los Angeles, thirteen-year-old Francine befriends a fearlessly outspoken, nonconformist classmate. 228 pages.

Bringing Ezra Back by Cynthia DeFelice (Farrar)
Set in the nineteenth-century Ohio Valley, this sequel to Weasel follows Nathan’s efforts to rescue Ezra, who was mutilated while saving Nathan’s family in the previous book, from cruel exploitation. 148 pages.

Shooting the Moon by Frances O’Roark Dowell (Atheneum)
When twelve-year-old Jamie’s older brother joins the army in 1969 and begins to send packages of undeveloped film from Vietnam, she learns that things aren’t as simple as they seem. 163 pages.

The Game of Silence written and illustrated by Louise Erdrich (HarperCollins)
Ordered off their traditional lands by the U.S. government, Omakayas and her Ojibwa family prepare for an uncertain future. A sequel to The Birchbark House. 258 pages.

The Giant Rat of Sumatra, or Pirates Galore written by Sid Fleischman, illustrated by John Hendrix (Greenwillow)
A page-turning romp through the California countryside begins when the crew of Captain Alejandro Gallows comes ashore at San Diego in 1846. 194 pages.

Water Street by Patricia Reilly Giff (Lamb/Random)
In 1875 Brooklyn, thirteen-year-old Bird aspires to be just like her healer/midwife mother, the now-grown protagonist of Nory Ryan’s Song. 167 pages.

Tomorrow, the River by Dianne E. Gray (Houghton)
Fourteen-year-old Megan, younger sister of the heroine of Together Apart, spends the summer of 1896 traveling up the Mississippi on her sister’s steamboat. 233 pages.

Cracker!: The Best Dog in Vietnam by Cynthia Kadohata (Atheneum)
A loyal bomb-sniffing German shepherd and her trainer relate the story of their work in Vietnam, providing an accessible introduction for those unfamiliar with this chapter of history. 314 pages.

Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata (Atheneum)
Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, a Japanese-American girl and her family are relocated to an interment camp. 260 pages.

The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages (Viking)
During World War II, ten-year-old Dewey joins her mathematician father at Los Alamos in this intense but accessible coming-of-age page-turner. 324 pages.

Gemini Summer by Iain Lawrence (Delacorte)
In 1965, nine-year-old Danny, traumatized by the death of his older brother Beau, runs away to Cape Canaveral and meets Beau’s hero, astronaut Gus Grisson. 265 pages.

Letters from a Slave Boy: The Story of Joseph Jacobs by Mary E. Lyons (Atheneum)
The son of Harriet Jacobs (Letters from a Slave Girl) keeps a diary of unsent letters, chronicling his escape from slavery and subsequent adventures in 1840s Boston, California, and Australia. 198 pages.

Here Today by Ann M. Martin (Scholastic)
After JFK’s assassination, small-town eccentric “Doris Day” Dingman pursues a new life in New York, dragging her daughter along. 308 pages.

A Friendship for Today by Patricia C. McKissack (Scholastic)
In 1955 suburban St. Louis, Rosemary, the lone black child in her newly integrated classroom, forms an unlikely friendship with Grace, the polio-stricken class bully. 174 pages.

The King of Mulberry Street written by Donna Jo Napoli (Lamb/Random)
Only nine when his mother smuggled him out of Italy, Dom Napoli quickly comes of age on the dangerous streets of 1890s New York City. 246 pages.

Keeping Score by Linda Sue Park (Clarion)
Nine-year-old Maggie learns to score baseball games from Jim, a new firefighter at the station where she hangs out, then expands her talent to tracking the war when Jim is called up to serve in Korea. 193 pages.

Edenville Owls by Robert B. Parker (Sleuth/Philomel)
In post-WWII Massachusetts, eighth-grader Bobby uncovers a secret about his teacher, which reveals a hidden world of violence and prejudice. 194 pages.

Bread and Roses, Too by Katherine Paterson (Clarion)
Two children, one an Italian immigrant attending school, one a native-born New-Englander laboring in the textile mills, are caught up in the Bread and Roses Strike of 1912 in Lawrence, Massachusetts. 272 pages.

Sky written by Pamela Porter, illustrated by Mary Jane Gerber (Groundwood)
Eleven-year-old Georgia’s home on the edge of Montana’s Blackfeet Reservation is washed away in a 1964 flood. 83 pages.

Ghost Girl: A Blue Ridge Mountain Story written by Delia Ray (Clarion)
An eleven-year-old’s life is transformed in the 1920s when a school opens in her isolated Blue Ridge Mountain community in Virginia. 216 pages.

The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt (Clarion)
Seventh-grader Holling receives unexpected guidance and companionship from his teacher against the threatening backdrop of the Vietnam War. 264 pages.

Finest Kind by Lea Wait (McElderry)
Jake must keep his family, including his disabled and stigmatized little brother, intact after the Panic of 1837 forces them to move from Boston to Wiscasset, Maine. 246 pages.

The Earth Dragon Awakes: San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 written by Lawrence Yep (HarperCollins)
The alternating perspectives of two eight-year-old boys tell the story of their fictional families’ experiences before, during, and after the earthquake and firestorm. 117 pages.

Young Adult Fiction
Suggested grade level for each entry: 7 and up

This Vast Land written by Stephen E. Ambrose (Simon)
The fictional journal of George Shannon, the youngest member of the Lewis and Clark expedition. 293 pages.

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party by M. T. Anderson (Candlewick)
Owned and educated by a society of New England philosophers, a slave in eighteenth-century Boston discovers that Enlightenment ideals are no match for human savagery. 359 pages.

The Trial written by Jen Bryant (Knopf)
A fictionalization of the sensational Depression-era trial of Bruno Hauptmann, the immigrant carpenter accused of kidnapping and murdering the baby son of Charles Lindbergh. 180 pages.

Redemption written by Julie Chibbaro (Atheneum)
An ambitious first novel imagines an embattled English family’s immigration to America in the 1520s, nearly 100 years before the permanent settlement of Jamestown. 262 pages.

Summer’s End written by Audrey Couloumbis (Putnam)
In 1970, a thirteen-year-old struggles with the rift between her older brother, an opponent of the Vietnam War who has burned his draft card, and her father, a proud veteran. 184 pages.

Part of Me: Stories of a Louisiana Family by Kimberly Willis Holt (Holt)
An intergenerational family portrait tracks themes of literature and individuality from fourteen-year-old aspiring writer Rose in 1939 to her great-grandson in 2004. 209 pages.

How It Happened in Peach Hill by Marthe Jocelyn (Lamb/Random)
Annie contends with ethical and emotional frustrations while working for her mother, a con artist and “Spiritual Advisor,” in 1917 New York, which is reeling from World War I and an influenza epidemic. 233 pages.

Monkey Town: The Summer of the Scopes Trial written by Ronald Kidd (Simon)
Faith and science go head-to-head in 1925 when the teaching of evolution is put on trial in the Tennessee town where fifteen-year-old Frances lives. 259 pages.

Day of Tears written by Julius Lester (Jump at the Sun)
Fictional monologues and conversations recreate the final day of the largest slave auction in American history. Winner of the 2006 Coretta Scott King Author Award. 177 pages.

My Travels with Capts. Lewis and Clark by George Shannon written by Kate McMullan, illustrated by Adrienne Yorinks (Cotler/HaperCollins)
George Shannon, the youngest member of the Lewis and Clark expedition, comes of age as a wilderness man in this fictionalized journal written by one of his descendants. 266 pages.

Eyes of the Emperor written by Graham Salisbury (Lamb/Random)
Once an eager volunteer, a Japanese-American soldier is mistreated by the U.S. Army after the attack on Pearl Harbor. 230 pages.

The Unresolved by T. K. Welsh (Dutton)
A fifteen-year-old casualty of the 1904 General Slocum steamboat disaster haunts the inquests, both official and personal, that follow her death, hoping to find peace. 151 pages.

New Found Land: Lewis and Clark’s Voyage of Discovery written by Allan Wolf (Candlewick)
Through fictional poems, journal entries, and letters, thirteen members of the famed expedition reveal their personal perspectives on the journey. 501 pages.

Poetry
Suggested grade level listed with each entry

Fortune’s Bones: The Manumission Requiem written by Marilyn Nelson (Front Street)
The macabre afterlife of an eighteenth-century Connecticut slave — his skeleton was studied by student doctors then gawked at by children — is memorialized with simplicity and dignity. Grade level: 7 and up. 32 pages.

A Wreath for Emmett Till written by Marilyn Nelson, illustrated by Philippe Lardy (Houghton)
Interlinked sonnets memorialize the brutal, racially motivated murder of a 1950s school boy. A 2006 Coretta Scott King Honor Book. Grade level: 7 and up. 40 pages.

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