Children's Book Suggestions | Historical FictionUnpublished

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Technically, this series is more of a time travel story than true historical fiction, but there's no better way to introduce kids to world history than "the Jack & Annie books." (Bridging Fiction Grades 2-4)

Prehistoric

Inspired by real archaeological artifacts, this novel in verse tells the story of two ordinary children in Ancient Greece: Rhaskos, a Thracian slave, and Melisto, the ghost of a noble girl who served Artemis as a priestess. (Young Teen Fiction Grades 5-7)

Ancient Greece

A baby with a powerful destiny is adopted by an abbey full of monks in this modern classic from beloved author Kate DiCamillo. (Children's Fiction Grades 3-5)

Medieval Europe

A fast-paced fantasy epic set in ancient Rome that fuses archaeology, history, and mythological magic. (Young Teen Fiction Grades 5-7)

Ancient Rome

A Deaf educator uses a real-life historical Deaf community on Martha's Vineyard, in which 25% of the population was Deaf and all residents spoke a unique sign language, as the setting for this suspenseful tale about a scientist's visit to the island. (Young Teen Fiction Grades 5-7)

Nineteenth Century US | 1805

A Ukrainian Jewish girl finds her place on the North Dakota prairie after her family is forced to flee persecution from the Russian Empire. (Children's Fiction Grades 3-5)

Twentieth Century US | 1906

An Asante boy is captured, sold into slavery, and escapes in this novel in verse from powerhouse author Kwame Alexander. (Young Teen Fiction Grades 5-7)

Nineteenth Century Africa & US | 1860

The first book in the popular I Survived series about surviving famous historical disasters from a child's point of view features one of the most dramatic moments in modern history: the sinking of the Titanic. (Children's Fiction Grades 3-5)

Twentieth Century US | 1912

A monk, a Jewish refugee, and a psychic peasant join forces in this medieval road trip story loosely inspired by Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. (Young Teen Fiction Grades 5-7)

Medieval France | 1242

A spunky teen girl avoids her embroidery, plays pranks, and tries to avoid an arranged marriage in this Newbery Honor-winning classic. (Young Teen Fiction Grades 5-7)

Medieval England | 1290

A medieval girl flees the Black Plague on foot, an experience that may be cathartic for kids still dealing with the ramifications of living through a global pandemic. (Children's Fiction Grades 3-5)

Medieval Europe | 1300s

A Jewish teenager helps her grandfather protect their fellow Jews from persecution in Inquisition-era Spain. (Young Teen Fiction Grades 5-7)

Medieval Spain | 1400s

A Chinese American girl who dreams of being a dressmaker and her white father try to make their home in pioneer era LaForge, South Dakota in a story inspired by the author's childhood love of Little House on the Prairie. (Children's Fiction Grades 3-5)

Nineteenth Century US | 1880

A magical closet designed by Leonardo da Vinci transports a girl from 1928 New Jersey to sixteenth-century Florence, where she meets a boy being held hostage by the Pope while Michelangelo works the Sistene Chapel. Based on real people and artifact from Italian history! (Children's Fiction Grades 3-5)

Renaissance Italy | 1511

A story of the American Revolution from children's literary legend Avi, in which a boy from a Loyalist family must choose sides in the burgeoning War for Independence. (Young Teen Fiction Grades 5-7)

American Revolution | 1775

LAFAYETTE! Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales, written by a modern graphic novel artist who shares his name with a famous revolutionary war spy, tells engaging true stories from US history--including this tale of the Marquis de Lafayette, French solider and Revolutionary War hero.

American Revolution | 1777

Two enslaved children escape plantation life and take refuge among an off-the-grid community of formerly enslaved Black Americans in the Great Dismal Swamp. (Children's Fiction Grades 3-5)

Nineteenth Century US

The author of Wonder crafts a masterful horse story about a boy's search for his missing father. (Young Teen Fiction Grades 5-7)

Nineteenth Century US | 1860

A girl with a clubfoot blossoms when she's evacuated to the country as part of a World War II effort to move British children out of London during the Blitz. (Young Teen Fiction Grades 3-5)

World War II

The first in the popular series of lightly fictionalized memoirs about Wilder's childhood in the upper Midwest. (Children's Fiction Grades 3-5)

Nineteenth Century US | 1871

A 13-year-old Chinese American girl spins her own twist on American tall tales for other workers in their post-Chinese Exclusion Act mining camp. (Young Teen Graphic Novel Grades 3-5)

Nineteenth Century US | 1885

A teenage boy tracks a cattle thief across turn-of-the-century Colorado in this suspenseful Western. (Young Teen Fiction Grades 5-7)

Twentieth Century US | 1901

A young girl, grandmother, and baby brother survive a harrowing desert journey as they flee to safety in the US during the Mexican Revolution, inspired by the author's grandmother's own immigration journey. (Children's Fiction Grades 3-5)

Twentieth Century US | 1910

A brother and sister flee North Korea in this winter survival story set at the start of the Korean war. (Children's Fiction Grades 3-5)

Korean War | 1950

Based on the author's childhood experiences, a young Umpqua girl adjusts to life in LA after her tribe is forcibly removed from their Oregon lands in the 1960s. (Children's Fiction Grades 3-5)

Twentieth Century | 1957

The true story of the bear was adopted by a Canadian regiment in World War I and inspired Christopher Robin Milne to name his stuffed bear--who would later go on to star in his father's classic children's books--Winnie the Pooh. (Children's Fiction Grades 3-5)

World War I

A modern American kid stuck at home during the pandemic learns about his Ukrainian grandmother's horrific experiences during the Holodomor famine engineered by the Stalinist Soviet government. (Children's Fiction Grades 3-5)

Twentieth Century | 1932

A tween boy moves to Alcatraz when his father becomes a guard at the famous prison. (Young Teen Fiction Grades 5-7)

Great Depression | 1935

An award-winning author tells an atmospheric summer story based on her childhood in Brooklyn, when her Bushwick neighborhood is caught between the pressures of gentrification and a wave of fires. (Young Teen Fiction Grades 5-7)

Twentieth Century | 1970s

Based on the author's experiences as a Vietnam War refugee, this novel in verse tells the story of a young girl's arrival in Alabama following the fall of Saigon in 1975. (Young Teen Fiction Grades 5-7)

Vietnam War | 1975

National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Louise Erdrich draws on her Ojibwe heritage in this series of books inspired by 19th-century Indigenous communities in northern Minnesota. (Children's Fiction Grades 3-5)

Nineteenth Century US | 1847

A baseball-loving tomboy confronts injustice when her family loses their Dust Bowl farm and relocates to a California peach orchard. (Children's Fiction Grades 3-5)

Great Depression

A graphic novel about a Japanese Canadian boy whose love of baseball brings him solace while incarcerated during World War II. (Children's Graphic Novel Grades 3-5)

World War II

Two girls escape the Chernobyl disaster in Communist-era Soviet Ukraine, sheltering with one girl's grandmother who secretly practices Jewish traditions. For another take on escaping Pripyat following the disaster, try Escape from Chernobyl by Andy Marino. (Young Teen Fiction Grades 5-7)

Twentieth Century | 1986

A Korean-American middle schooler and his friends cross LA during the LA Riots to help his father, whose choice to stay at the family store in Koreatown places him at the heart of the unrest. (Young Teen Fiction Grades 5-7)

Twentieth Century | 1992

An American teenage boy lies about his age to join the Allied forces for the D-Day invasion of Normandy in this pulse-pounding adventure from bestselling author Alan Gratz. (Young Teen Fiction Grades 5-7) World War II | 1944

A mixed faith Muslim and Hindu girl chronicles her family's flight to India during the Partition of India and Pakistan. (Young Teen Fiction Grades 5-7)

Twentienth Century | 1947

A girl recovering from polio encounters Soviet spies and aliens in this graphic novel set in the early days of the Cold War. (Young Teen Graphic Novel Grades 5-7)

Cold War | 1953

Shortly after Cuba comes under Communist control, a young boy immigrates to the US by himself in this historical novel inspired by the author's father's experiences. For additional novels on the topic, try Enchanted Air by Margarita Engle, Farewell Cuba Mi Isla by Alexandra Diaz, and Isla to Island by Alexis Castellanos. (Children's Fiction Grades 3-5)

Cold War | 1960

The first book in Deborah Wiles' 60s trilogy zooms in on one girl's experience during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The sequels focus on the Civil Rights era in 1964 Mississippi and two cousins grappling with the Vietnam draft in 1968. (Young Teen Fiction Grades 5-7)

Cold War | 1962

A family road trip to Birmingham in September 1963 brings a Michigan family a little too close to one of the most devastating tragedies of the Civil Rights Era. Introduces kids to a difficult historical era with humor and grace. (Children's Fiction Grades 3-5)

Civil Rights Era | 1963

A fantasy novel grounded in the rootworker traditions of Gullah cultures in South Carolina, set against the backdrop of Civil Rights Movement. (Children's Fiction Grades 3-5)

Civil Rights Era | 1963

A young girl separated from her father with the rise of the Berlin wall makes a daring escape to join him in West Berlin in one of many gripping historical fiction adventures by Jennifer A. Nielsen. (Young Teen Fiction Grades 5-7)

Cold War | 1965

A Jewish girl feels caught in the middle when her older sister elopes with an Indian American man after interracial marriage is legalized in the US. (Young Teen Fiction Grades 5-7)

Twentieth Century | 1967

A classic novel from Gary D. Schmidt about a Protestant boy who learns to love Shakespeare during an independent study class held while his Catholic and Jewish classmates take religious studies classes. (Young Teen Fiction Grades 5-7)

Twentieth Century | 1967

A trio of sisters spend the summer of 1968 with their estranged activist mother in Berkeley, where she tries to repair their relationship and sends the girls to a Black Panther-run summer camp. (Young Teen Fiction Grades 5-7)

Twentieth Century | 1968

On the 25th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, a Japanese girl begins to untangle the legacy of this traumatic experience in her community in this translated novel. Pair this one with Sadako and the Thousand Cranes for an in-depth exploration of atomic bomb survivor stories. (Young Teen Fiction Grades 5-7)

Twentieth Century | 1970

A tween girl spends the summer at her grandparents' retirement community in Florida in this graphic novel series starter about a middle schooler in the mid-1970s. (Young Teen Graphic Novels Grades 5-7)

Twentieth Century | 1970s

This entry in the popular Girls Survive series focuses on the Mt. St. Helens eruption of 1984, featuring a young girl escaping the eruption in a fast-paced survival story. A great choice for kids who've read all of the I Survived books and are looking for more short, approachable historical fiction survival stories. (Children's Fiction Grades 3-5)

Twentieth Century | 1984

A young girl moves through grief and finds her voice after her dad dies of AIDS at the height of the mid-1980s AIDS epidemic. (Young Teen Fiction Grades 5-7)

Twentieth Century | 1987

A middle school girl finds herself journeying back to 1993 to join her parents in their middle school years in this updated twist on Back to the Future. (Young Teen Grades 5-7)

Twentieth Century | 1993