Historical Fiction

 

A northern light / Jennifer Donnelly (FIC DON)

            Donnelly weaves the fictional story of 16-year-old Mattie into the events of the Gilette murder case (also the inspiration of Dreiser's An American Tragedy).

 

The bridge of San Luis Rey / Thornton Wilder (FIC WIL)

"On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below." With this celebrated sentence Thornton Wilder begins "The Bridge of San Luis Rey, one of the towering achievements in American fiction.

 

Milkweed: a novel / Jerry Spinelli (FIC SPI)

Set in Nazi-occupied Poland just before the Warsaw ghetto uprising, Spinelli's first historical novel tells a tale of heartbreak, hope, and survival though the eyes of a young orphan.

 

The bottoms / Joe R. Lansdale (FIC LAN)

            A coming-of-age story set in the early years of the Great Depression.

 

Amistad: a novel / by Alexs Pate (FIC PAT)

            A novelization of the motion picture "Amistad," a fact-based story of the 1839 mutiny on board a Spanish slave ship, which resulted in a trial before the Supreme Court during which former American president John Quincy Adams argued in favor of freedom for the slaves.

 

A tale of two cities / Charles Dickens (FIC DIC)

            The timeless classic of love and sacrifice during the French Revolution.

 

All the pretty horses / Cormac McCarthy (FIC MCC)

            The story of John Grady Cole who, at 16, finds himself at the dying end of a long line of Texas ranchers, cut off from the only life he has ever imagined for himself.

 

The crossing / Cormac McCarthy (FIC MCC)

            Following All the Pretty Little Horses in Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy.

 

Cities of the plain / Cormac McCarthy (FIC MCC)

            The conclusion of the Border trilogy describes the friendship of John Grady Cole and Billy Parham, two cowboys working on a New Mexico ranch in the 1950s.

 

Thunder rolling in the mountains / Scott O'Dell and Elizabeth Hall (FIC ODE)

            In the late nineteenth century, a young Nez Perce girl relates how her people were driven off their land by the U.S. Army and forced to retreat north until their eventual surrender.

 

In America / Susan Sontag (FIC SON)

            Story of the renowned Polish actress Maryna Zalenska and her search for self-transformation, the fate of idealism, and the old and new worlds on the cusp of modernity.

 

The volcano lover / Susan Sontag (FIC SON)

            Set in 18th century Naples, based on the lives of Sir William Hamilton, his celebrated wife Emma, and Lord Nelson.

 

The confessions of Nat Turner / William Styron (FIC STY)

            Set in 1831, The Confessions of Nat Turner tells, in his own words, of a black man who awaits death in a Virginia jail cell.

 

O pioneers! / Willa Cather (FIC CAT)

            Cather's classic story of Alexandra Bergson, a courageous Swedish woman who must assume responsibility for the farm and family after her father's death in 19th-century Nebraska.

 

Les miserables / Victor Hugo (HUG)

            In early 19th-century France, a reformed ex-criminal finds himself threatened by people and events of his past.

 

The fighting ground / by Avi (FIC AVI)

            One day in the life of a 13-year-old boy fighting in the Revolutionary War is vividly depicted in hour-by-hour vignettes.

 

Chesapeake / James Michener (FIC MIC)

            The Chesapeake Bay area's history is portrayed by following seven families.

 

Murder in the cathedral / by T.S. Eliot (FIC ELI)

            A drama of the conflict between church and state in 12th century England culminates in the murder of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral.

 

The sword in the stone / T.H. White (FIC WHI)

            Recreates the education and training of the boy named Arthur, who was to become the greatest of Britain's legendary rulers.

 

The true confessions of Charlotte Doyle / Avi (FIC AVI)

            As the lone female on a transatlantic voyage in 1832, Charlotte learns that the captain is murderous and the crew rebellious.

 

Crispin: the cross of lead / Avi (FIC AVI)

            In medieval England, 13-year-old Crispin has no home, family, or possessions. Accused of a crime he didn't commit, he takes his mother's cross of lead and begins an amazing and terrifying journey across the English countryside.

 

Catherine, called Birdy / by Karen Cushman (FIC CUS)

            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.

 

Summer of my German soldier / Bette Greene (FIC GRE)

            Sheltering an escaped German prisoner of war is the beginning of some shattering experiences for a 12-year-old Jewish girl in Arkansas.

 

Out of the dust / Karen Hesse (FIC HES)

            A poem cycle that reads as a novel, this Newbery Medal winner tells the story of Billie Jo, a girl who struggles to help her family survive the dust bowl years of the Depression.

 

Lyddie / Katherine Paterson (FIC PAT)

            Impoverished Vermont farm girl Lyddie Worthen is determined to gain her independence by becoming a factory worker in Lowell, Massachusetts, in the 1840s.

 

Prince across the water / Jane Yolen & Robert J. Harris (FIC YOL)

            In 1746, a year after the Scottish clans have rallied to the call of their exiled prince, Charles Stuart, to take up arms against England's tyranny, fourteen-year-old, epileptic Duncan MacDonald and his cousin, Ewan, run away to join the fight at Culloden and discover the harsh reality of war.

 

Sword of the rightful king: a novel of King Arthur / Jane Yolen (FIC YOL)

            Merlinnus the magician devises a way for King Arthur to prove himself the rightful king of England--pulling a sword from a stone--but trouble arises when someone else removes the sword first.

 

Prairie whispers / Frances Arrington (FIC ARR)

            The author vividly evokes the lonesome, wild beauty of the 1860s American prairie in this gripping tale of secrets that lead to lies.

 

Ashes of roses / Mary Jane Auch (FIC AUC)

            Sixteen-year-old Margaret Rose Nolan, newly arrived from Ireland, finds work at New York City's Triangle Shirtwaist Factory shortly before the 1911 fire in which 146 employees died.

 

Fever, 1793 / Laurie Halse Anderson (FIC AND)

            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.

 

Ivanhoe / Walter Scott (FIC SCO)

            Scott's classic historical romance, set in the twelfth-century England of Richard I, depicts the adventures of the heroic Wilfred of Ivanhoe in winning the hand of beautiful Lady Rowena.

 

Memoirs of a geisha: a novel / Arthur Golden (FIC GOL)

            A Japanese geisha named Sayuri shares the "true confessions" of her life focusing on her appearance, romance, suspense, dancing, and more.

 

The secret diary of Anne Boleyn: a novel / Robin Maxwell (FIC MAX)

            Upon her coronation as Queen, Elizabeth I receives her mother Ann Boleyn's diary and learns of her love for her and her torment at the hands of Henry VIII.

 

The red tent / Anita Diamant (FIC DIA)

            A fictional account of the traditions and turmoil of women's lives in Biblical times. Told from the perspective of Dinah, daughter of Jacob and his four wives, this novel describes her childhood among sheepherders, her call to midwifery, and a new home in a foreign land.

 

Doctor Zhivago / Boris Pasternak (FIC PAS)

            Epic novel of post-revolutionary Russia focuses on the torments and dreams of a doctor-poet who attempts to avoid the struggles of his turbulent era.

 

The king's shadow / Elizabeth Alder (FIC ALD)

            After he is orphaned and has his tongue cut out in a clash with the bullying sons of a Welsh noble, Evyn is sold as a slave and serves many masters, from the gracious Lady Swan Neck to the valiant Harold Godwinson, England's last Saxon king.

 

The revenge of the forty-seven samurai / Erik Christian Haugaard (FIC HAU)

            A fourteen-year-old serving boy finds himself surrounded by suspicion and betrayal as his master gathers a group of samurai to avenge Lord Asano's death.

 

The big sky / A.B. Guthrie, Jr. (FIC GUT)

            Relates the adventures of Boone Caudill, a mountain man in the American West of the mid-nineteenth century.

 

The last of the Mohicans / James Fenimore Cooper (FIC COO)

            Hawkeye, a scout, leads a small band of Americans fleeing from the British and their Indian allies in the French and Indian War.

 

A spirit to ride the whirlwind / Athena V. Lord (FIC LOR)

            Twelve-year-old Binnie, whose mother runs a company boarding house in Lowell, Massachusetts, begins working in a textile mill and is caught up in the 1836 strike of women workers.

 

The massacre at Fall Creek / Jessamyn West (FIC WES)

            In 1824, five white men murdered innocent Indians. The resulting trial and aftermath make for an exciting, historically accurate story of frontier life.

 

A proud taste for scarlet and miniver / E. L. Konigsburg (FIC KON)

            While waiting in heaven for divine judgment to be passed on her second husband, Eleanor of Aquitaine and three of the people who knew her well recall the events of her life.