Great Books to Celebrate the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution for kids of all ages!

In celebration of the the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, check out these books available at the Sussex County Library System for kids ages birth to 17.

In celebration, we have compiled a list of books that celebrate the people, ideas, patriotism and moments that shaped our nation. These great "reads" can help children connect to America’s past while imagining its future.

Updated April 30, 2026
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Sussex County Library System (NJ)
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Fever, 1793
Anderson, Laurie Halse
Paper Book
An epidemic of fever sweeps through the streets of 1793 Philadelphia in this novel from Laurie Halse Anderson where "the plot rages like the epidemic itself" (The New York Times Book Review). During the summer of 1793, Mattie Cook lives above the family coffee shop with...
I survived the American Revolution, 1776
Ball, Georgia
Paper Book
A gripping graphic novel adaptation of Lauren Tarshis's bestselling I Survived the American Revolution, 1776 with text adapted by Georgia Ball and art by Leo Trinidad. Nathaniel Fox never imagined he'd find himself in the middle of a blood-soaked battlefield, fighting for his life....
Fireworks
Burgess, Matthew
Paper Book
Fireworks is a sparkling picture book from the award-winning team of Matthew Burgess and Cátia Chien, highlighting the simple delights of a steamy July day in the city as two siblings eagerly anticipate a spectacular fireworks display. POP! As a hot day sizzles into...
The story of Ruby Bridges
Coles, Robert.
Paper Book
A Pulitzer Prize-winning author and a Coretta Scott King Award-winning illustrator bring to life the true story of an extraordinary six-year-old who helped shape American history when she became the first African-American sent to first grade in an all white school. This moving picture book captures...
Bud, Not Buddy: (Newbery Medal Winner)
Curtis, Christopher Paul.
Paper Book
The Newbery Medal and Coretta Scott King Award-winning classic about a boy who decides to hit the road to find his father--from Christopher Paul Curtis, recipient of the Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement.   It's 1936, in Flint, Michigan....
Stella by starlight
Draper, Sharon M.
Paper Book
Sharon M. Draper presents "storytelling at its finest" (School Library Journal, starred review) in this New York Times bestselling Depression-era novel about a young girl who must learn to be brave in the face of violent prejudice when the Ku Klux Klan reappears in her segregated...
If I ever get out of here :
Gansworth, Eric,
Paper Book
Now in paperback: The debut novel Laurie Halse Anderson praised for "fearlessly laying down the truth" about friendship, poverty, and the joys of rock 'n' roll.Lewis "Shoe" Blake is used to the joys and difficulties of life on the Tuscarora Indian reservation in 1975: the joking, the Fireball games,...
Out of the dust
Hesse, Karen.
Ebook
Billie Jo has a great deal to forgive: her father for causing the accident that killed her mother; her mother for leaving when Billie Jo needed her most; and herself for being the cause of her own sorrow. Daddy's too wrung out to help her, and there's no one else to care. So at fourteen, Billie Jo...
Kira-kira
Kadohata, Cynthia.
Paper Book
A Japanese-American family struggles to build a new life in the Deep South of Georgia in this luminous novel, winner of the Newbery Medal. kira-kira (kee' ra kee' ra): glittering; shining Glittering. That's how Katie Takeshima's sister, Lynn, makes everything...
Henry's freedom box
Levine, Ellen.
Paper Book
A stirring, dramatic story of a slave who mails himself to freedom by a Jane Addams Peace Award-winning author and a Coretta Scott King Award-winning artist.Henry Brown doesn't know how old he is. Nobody keeps records of slaves' birthdays. All the time he dreams about freedom, but that dream seems...
Sarah, plain and tall
MacLachlan, Patricia
Paper Book
This beloved Newbery Medal-winning book is the first of five books in Patricia MacLachlan's chapter book series about the Witting family. Set in the late nineteenth century and told from young Anna's point of view, Sarah, Plain and Tall tells the story of how Sarah Elisabeth Wheaton comes...
A very large expanse of sea
Mafi, Tahereh
Paper Book
Longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature! From the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Shatter Me series comes a powerful, heartrending contemporary novel about fear, first love, and the devastating...
I am Sonia Sotomayor
Meltzer, Brad
Paper Book
Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina Supreme Court Justice, is the subject of the sixteenth picture book in the New York Times bestselling series of biographies about heroes. This friendly, fun biography series focuses on the traits that made our heroes great--the traits that...
To the future, Ben Franklin!
Osborne, Mary Pope
Ebook
Get whisked away through time in the magic tree house with Jack and Annie in the #1 bestselling series--and meet famous Founding Father and inventor Ben Franklin! Jack and Annie know all about Ben Franklin. He was a Founding Father, a journalist, and a famous inventor! When the...
To the future, Ben Franklin!
Osborne, Mary Pope
Ebook
Get whisked away through time in the magic tree house with Jack and Annie in the #1 bestselling series--and meet famous Founding Father and inventor Ben Franklin! Jack and Annie know all about Ben Franklin. He was a Founding Father, a journalist, and a famous inventor! When the...
Planet Earth is blue
Panteleakos, Nicole
Paper Book
"Tender and illuminating. A beautiful debut." --Rebecca Stead, Newbery Medal-winning author of When You Reach Me A heartrending and hopeful story about a nonverbal girl and her passion for space exploration, for fans of See You in the Cosmos, Mockingbird, and The...
Esperanza rising
Ryan, Pam Muñoz.
Paper Book
**CELEBRATING 25 YEARS IN PRINT!** A modern classic for our time and for all time―this beloved, award-winning bestseller resonates with fresh meaning for each new generation. Perfect for fans of Kate DiCamillo, Christopher Paul Curtis, and Rita Williams-Garcia. ...
Hidden figures : the true story of four black women and the space race
Shetterly, Margot Lee
Paper Book
Based on the New York Times bestselling book and the Academy Award-nominated movie, author Margot Lee Shetterly and Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Award winner Laura Freeman bring the incredibly inspiring true story of four black women who helped NASA launch men into space to...
Hidden figures : the untold true story of four African-American women who helped launch our nation into space
Lee Shetterly, Margot
Paper Book
Based on the New York Times bestselling book and the Academy Award--nominated movie, author Margot Lee Shetterly and Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Award winner Laura Freeman bring the incredibly inspiring true story of four black women in STEM who helped NASA launch men into space...
I Survived the American Revolution, 1776 I Survived Series, Book 15
Tarshis, Lauren
Ebook
I Survived the American Revolution, 1776 I Survived Series, Book 15
Tarshis, Lauren
Ebook
I survived the American Revolution, 1776
Tarshis, Lauren.
Paper Book
A gripping graphic novel adaptation of Lauren Tarshis's bestselling I Survived the American Revolution, 1776 with text adapted by Georgia Ball and art by Leo Trinidad. Nathaniel Fox never imagined he'd find himself in the middle of a blood-soaked battlefield, fighting for his life....
I Survived the Battle of Gettysburg, 1863 (I Survived #7) I Survived Series, Book 7
Tarshis, Lauren
Ebook
Roll of thunder, hear my cry
Taylor, Mildred D
Paper Book
The story of one African-American family fighting to stay together and strong in the face of brutal racist attacks, illness, poverty, and betrayal in the Deep South of the 1930s.
One Crazy Summer: The Graphic Novel
Williams-Garcia, Rita
Paper Book
"I wish I didn't know that I was marching my sisters into a boiling pot of trouble cooking in Oakland..." Eleven-year-old Delphine is like a mother to her two younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern. She's had to be, ever since their mother, Cecile, left them seven years ago for a...
One crazy summer
Williams-Garcia, Rita.
Paper Book
In this Newbery Honor novel, New York Times bestselling author Rita Williams-Garcia tells the story of three sisters who travel to Oakland, California, in 1968 to meet the mother who abandoned them. A strong option for summer reading--take this book along on a family road trip or enjoy...
This is the rope : a story from the Great Migration
Woodson, Jacqueline.
Paper Book
The story of one family's journey north during the Great Migration starts with a little girl in South Carolina who finds a rope under a tree one summer. She has no idea the rope will become part of her family's history. But for three generations, that rope is passed down, used for everything from...
My life as an ice cream sandwich
Zoboi, Ibi Aanu
Paper Book
National Book Award-finalist Ibi Zoboi makes her middle-grade debut with a moving story of a girl finding her place in a world that's changing at warp speed. Twelve-year-old Ebony-Grace Norfleet has lived with her beloved grandfather Jeremiah in Huntsville, Alabama ever since she...

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