Historical and War (YA)

If you like reading novels set in times gone by you might find something interesting on this list. Also included are some war books (many and varied wars! Including the American Revolution, World War II, the Iraq War). Some are more 'historical' than others!

Updated June 19, 2024
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Wellington City Libraries Youth team at Wellington City Libraries
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Freedom swimmer
Chim, Wai
Paper Book
A powerful story of friendship, bravery, and a desperate bid for freedom, inspired by true events. Ming survived the famine that killed his parents during China's "Great Leap Forward", and lives a hard but adequate life, working in the fields. When a group of city boys comes to the...
Historical setting: Maoist China
A northern light
Donnelly, Jennifer.
Paper Book
Sixteen-year-old Mattie Gokey has a word for everything, and big dreams but little hope of seeing them come true. She collects words, stores them up as a way of fending off the hard truths of her life, the truths that she can't write down in stories.The fresh pain of her mother's death. The burden...
Historical setting: 1900s USA
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dumas, Alexandre
Paper Book
Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantes is confined to the grim fortress of If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and becomes determined not only to escape but to unearth the treasure and use it to plot the destruction of the...

Historical setting: 1800s France

The secret life of Kitty Granger
Falksen, G. D.
Paper Book
Sixteen-year-old Kitty Granger has always known that others consider her peculiar. She hates noise and crowds, tends to fixate on patterns, and often feels acutely aware of her surroundings even as she struggles to interpret the behavior of people around her. As a working-class girl in London's...

Historical setting: 1960s London

These violent delights
Gong, Chloe
Paper Book
An Instant New York Times Bestseller! A BuzzFeed Best Young Adult Book of 2020 Perfect for fans of The Last Magician and Serpent & Dove, this heart-stopping debut is an imaginative Romeo and Juliet retelling set in 1920s Shanghai...

Historical setting: 1920s Shanghai, China

The weight of our sky
Hanna Alkaf
Paper Book
A music loving teen with OCD does everything she can to find her way back to her mother during the historic race riots in 1969 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in this heart-pounding literary debut. Melati Ahmad looks like your typical movie-going, Beatles-obsessed sixteen-year-old....
Historical setting: 1960s Malaysia
Alex & Eliza : a love story
De la Cruz, Melissa
Paper Book
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Witches of East End and the Descendants series comes the love story of young Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler. 1777. Albany, New York.   As battle cries of the American Revolution echo in...
Historical setting: American Revolution, 1770s USA
Courting darkness
LaFevers, Robin
Paper Book
First in a duology, this darkly thrilling page-turner set in the world of the best-selling His Fair Assassin series is perfect for fans of THRONE OF GLASS, RED QUEEN, and GAME OF THRONES. Told in alternating perspectives, when Sybella discovers there is another trained assassin from...

Historical setting: 1400s France

Dreamland burning
Latham, Jennifer
Paper Book
A compelling dual-narrated tale from Jennifer Latham that questions how far we've come with race relations. Some bodies won't stay buried. Some stories need to be told. When seventeen-year-old Rowan Chase finds a skeleton on her family's property, she...

Historical setting: 1920s USA

Last night at the Telegraph Club
Lo, Malinda
Paper Book
Winner of the National Book Award A New York Times Bestseller A Kirkus Reviews Best Young Adult Book of the Century "The queer romance we've been waiting for."--Ms. Magazine Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can't remember exactly when the...

Historical setting: 1950s USA

This rebel heart
Locke, Katherine
Paper Book
A tumultuous tale of the student-led 1956 Hungarian revolution--and an all too timely look at the impact of Communism and the USSR in Eastern Europe--set in a fabulist, colorless post-WWII Budapest from Sydney Taylor Honor winner Katherine Locke.   "A haunting, beautiful...

Historical setting: Hungarian Revolution of 1956

Dodger
Pratchett, Terry
Audiobook
A storm. Rain-lashed city streets. A flash of lightning. A scruffy lad sees a girl leap desperately from a horsedrawn carriage in a vain attempt to escape her captors. Can the lad stand by and let her be caught again? Of course not, because hes... Dodger. Seventeen-year-old Dodger may be a street...

Historical setting: Victorian London

The fountains of silence : a novel
Sepetys, Ruta
Paper Book
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Salt to the Sea and Between Shades of Gray comes a gripping, extraordinary portrait of love, silence, and secrets under a Spanish dictatorship. Madrid, 1957. Under the fascist dictatorship of General Francisco...

Historical setting: 1950s Spain

Between shades of gray
Sepetys, Ruta.
Paper Book
Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty...

Historical setting: World War II Lithuania

Flygirl
Smith, Sherri L.
Paper Book
Ida Mae Jones dreams of flight. Her daddy was a pilot and being black didn't stop him from fulfilling his dreams. But her daddy's gone now, and being a woman, and being black, are two strikes against her. When America enters the war with Germany and Japan, the Army creates the WASP, the...

World War II USA

Milkweed
Spinelli, Jerry.
Paper Book
He’s a boy called Jew. Gypsy. Stopthief. Runt. Happy. Fast. Filthy son of Abraham. He’s a boy who lives in the streets of Warsaw. He’s a boy who steals food for himself and the other orphans. He’s a boy who believes in bread, and mothers, and angels. He’s a boy who...

Historical setting: World War II Poland

Jo & Laurie
Stohl, Margaret
Paper Book
Bestselling authors Margaret Stohl and Melissa de la Cruz bring us a romantic retelling of Little Women starring Jo March and her best friend, the boy next door, Theodore "Laurie" Laurence. 1869, Concord, Massachusetts- After the publication of her first novel, Jo March is...

Historical setting: 1860s USA

Code name Verity
Wein, Elizabeth.
Paper Book
The beloved #1 New York Times bestseller, a "fiendishly plotted" (New York Times) "heart-in-your mouth adventure" (Washington Post) that "will take wing and soar into your heart" (Laurie Halse Anderson). October 11th, 1943--A...

Historical setting: World War II England

The book thief
Zusak, Markus
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST YA BOOKS OF ALL TIME * A NEW YORK TIMES READER TOP 100 PICK FOR BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY * A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST YOUNG ADULT BOOK OF THE CENTURY The extraordinary, beloved novel about the...

Historical setting: World War II Germany


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