ANCIENT TIMES

Carter, Dorothy Sharp. His Majesty, Queen Hatshepsut.
A fictionalized account of the life of Hatshepsut, a queen in ancient Egypt who declared herself king and rules as such for more than twenty years. J-HF CAR

Lawrence, Caroline.  The Thieves of Ostia:  A Roman Mystery.
In Rome in the year 79 A.D., a group of children from very different backgrounds work together to discover who beheaded a pet dog -- and why. J-M LAW

McGraw, Eloise.  Mara, Daughter of the Nile.
The adventures of an ingenious Egyptian slave girl who undertakes a dangerous assignment as a spy in the royal palace of Thebes, in the days when Queen Hatshepsut ruled. J-HF MCG

Sutcliff, Rosemary.  The Lantern Bearers.
Instead of leaving with the last of the Roman legions, Aquila, a young officer, decides that his loyalties lie with Britain, and he eventually joins the forces of the Roman-British leader Ambrosius to fight against the Saxon hordes. J-HF SUT

MIDDLE AGES

Avi. Crispin: At the Edge of the World.
Branded as traitors by the king's authorities, Crispin and his guardian, Bear, flee to coastal towns in fourteenth-century England, where they perform a musical juggling act and bond as a family after befriending a disfigured girl. J-HF AVI

Cushman, Karen.  Will Sparrow’s Road.
In 1599 England, twelve-year-old lying, thieving Will Sparrow runs away, meets many colorful characters on the road, and then reluctantly joins a traveling "oddities" exhibit, where he learns to see beyond appearances. J-HF CUS

De Angeli, Marguerite.  The Door in the Wall.
The crippled son of a powerful nobleman sets out to prove his courage and his right to be recognized by the king. J-HF DEA, J-PBK DE

Gray, Elizabeth Janet. Adam of the Road.
The adventures of eleven-year-old Adam as he travels the open roads of thirteenth-century England searching for his missing father, a minstrel, and his stolen red spaniel, Nick. J-HF GRA

AMERICAN REVOLUTION 1775-1783

Hesse, Karen. Stowaway.
A fictionalized journal relates the experiences of a young stowaway from 1768 to 1771 aboard the Endeavor which sailed around the world under Captain James Cook. J-HF HES

Lawson, Robert. Ben and Me.
Summary: Benjamin Franklin's companion, Amos the mouse, recounts how he was responsible for Franklin's inventions and discoveries. J-PBK LAW

Meyers, Anna. The Keeping Room.
Left in charge of the family by his father who joins the Revolutionary War effort, thirteen-year-old Joey undergoes such great changes that he fears he may be betraying his beloved parent. J-HF MEY

O’Dell, Scott. Sarah Bishop.
Left alone after the deaths of her father and brother who take opposite sides in the War for Independence, and fleeing from the British who seek to arrest her, Sarah Bishop struggles to shape a new life for herself in the wilderness. J-HF ODE, J-PBK ODE

EARLY 1800’s

Avi.  The Man Who Was Poe.
Edgar Allan Poe investigates the problems of 11-year-old Edmund, whose family mysteriously disappeared, to a ghastly end? J-M AVI

Blos, Joan W.  A Gathering of Days:  A New England Girl’s Journal, 1830-32.
As she keeps house for her widowed father and younger sister, thirteen-year-old Catherine begins her journal, unaware of the eventful year that lies ahead.  J-HF BLO

Giff, Patricia. Nory Ryan’s Song.
When a terrible blight attacks Ireland's potato crop in 1845, twelve-year-old Nory Ryan's courage and ingenuity help her family and neighbors survive. J-HF GIF

Woods, Brenda. My Name Is Sally Little Song.
When their owner plans to sell one of them in 1802, twelve-year-old Sally and her family run away from their Georgia plantation to look for both freedom from slavery and a home in Florida with the Seminole Indians. J-HF WOO

WESTWARD EXPANSION 1800’s

Brink, Carol Ryrie.  Caddie Woodlawn.
The adventures of an eleven-year-old tomboy growing up on the Wisconsin frontier in the mid-nineteenth century. J-HF BRI

Cushman, Karen. The Ballad of Lucy Whipple.
In 1849, twelve-year-old California Morning Whipple, who renames herself Lucy, is distraught when her mother moves the family from Massachusetts to a rough California mining town. J-HF CUS

Erdich, Louise.  The Birchbark House.
Omakayas, a seven-year-old Native American girl of the Ojibwa tribe, lives through the joys of summer and the perils of winter on an island in Lake Superior in 1847.  J-HF ERD

Paulsen, Gary. Mr. Tucket.
In 1848, while on a wagon train headed for Oregon, fourteen-year-old Francis Tucket is kidnapped by Pawnee Indians and then falls in with a one-armed trapper who teaches him how to live in the wild. J-HF PAU

AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 1861-1865

Curtis, Christopher Paul. Elijah of Buxton.
In 1860, eleven-year-old Elijah Freeman, the first free-born child in Buxton, Canada, which is a haven for slaves fleeing the American south, uses his wits and skills to try to bring to justice the lying preacher who has stolen money that was to be used to buy a family's freedom J-PBK CUR

Hesse, Karen. A Light in the Storm.
In 1860 and 1861, while working in her father's lighthouse on an island off the coast of Delaware, fifteen-year-old Amelia records in her diary how the Civil War is beginning to devastate her divided state. J-HF HES

Hunt, Irene.  Across Five Aprils.
Young Jethro Creighton grows from a boy to a man when he must take care of the family farm in Illinois during the Civil War. J-HF HUN

Nolen, Jerdine.  Calico Girl.
Callie struggles to understand slavery when her stepbrother is sold away at the start of the Civil War, but is determined her whole family will be free one day. J-HF NOL

POST CIVIL WAR

Cushman, Karen.  Rodzina.
A twelve-year-old Polish American girl is boarded onto an orphan train in Chicago with fears about traveling to the West and a life of unpaid slavery. J-HF CUS

Kelly, Jacqueline.  The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate.
In central Texas in 1899, eleven-year-old Callie Vee Tate is instructed to be a lady by her mother, learns about love from the older 3 of her 6 brothers, and studies the natural world with her grandfather. J-HF KEL

MacLachlan, Patricia.  Sarah, Plain and Tall.
When their father invites a mail-order bride to come live with them in their prairie home, Caleb and Anna are captivated by their new mother and hope that she will stay. J-HF MAC

Rhodes, Jewell Parker.  Sugar.
In 1870, Reconstruction brings big changes to the Louisiana sugar plantation where spunky ten-year-old Sugar has always lived, including her friendship with Billy, the son of her former master, and the arrival of workmen from China.  J-HF RHO

EARLY 1900s

Avi. The Secret School.
In 1925, fourteen-year old Ida Bidson secretly takes over as the teacher when the one room schoolhouse in her remote Colorado area closes.
J-HF AVI

The Great War:  Stories Inspired by Items from the First World War.
This collection of short stories was inspired to write about the First World War by physical objects associated with the war. J-SS GRE

Hesse, Karen. Brooklyn Bridge.
In 1903 Brooklyn, fourteen-year-old Joseph Michtom's life changes for the worse when his parents, Russian immigrants, invent the teddy bear and turn their apartment into a factory, while nearby the glitter of Coney Island contrasts with the dismal lives of children dwelling under the Brooklyn Bridge. J-HF HES

Hesse, Karen. Letters From Rifka.
In letters to her cousin, a young Jewish girl chronicles her family's flight from Russia in 1919 and her own experiences when she must be left in Belgium for a while when the others emigrate to America. J-PBK HES

THE GREAT DEPRESSION 1929-1939

Curtis, Christopher Paul.  Bud, Not Buddy.
Ten-year-old Bud, a motherless boy living in Flint, Michigan, during the Great Depression, escapes a bad foster home and sets out in search of the man he believes to be his father--the renowned bandleader, H.E. Calloway of Grand Rapids. J-HF CUR

Hesse, Karen.  Out of the Dust.
In a series of poems, fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships of living on her family's wheat farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl years of the Depression.  J-HF HES

Holm, Jennifer.  Full of Beans.
Ten-year-old Beans Curry, a member of the Keepsies, the best marble playing gang in Depression-era Key West, Florida, engages in various schemes to earn money while "New Dealers" from Washington, D.C., arrive to turn run down Key West into a tourist resort. J-HF HOL

Peck, Richard. A Year Down Yonder.
In 1937, during the Depression, fifteen-year-old Mary Alice is sent to live with her feisty, larger-than-life grandmother in rural Illinois and comes to a better understanding of this fearsome woman. J-HF PEC

WORLD WAR II

Bruchac, Joseph. Code Talker.
After being taught that Navajo is a useless language in a boarding school run by whites, Ned Begay and other Navajo men are recruited by the Marines to become Code Talkers, sending messages during World War II in their native tongue. J-HF BRU

Hughes, Shirley. Hero on a Bicycle.
Florence, Italy, 1944 : The city is under heavy Nazi occupation, but for thirteen-year-old Paolo, war is a long and boring wait. Too young to fight for the resistance, yet desperate for action and adventure, he sneaks out each night to ride his bicycle along the darkened city streets. Finally at the center of the action, Paolo must figure out once and for all whether he has what it takes to truly be a hero. J-HF HUG

Klages, Ellen. The Green Glass Sea.
It is 1943, and 11-year-old Dewey Kerrigan is traveling west on a train to live with her scientist father--but no one will tell her exactly where he is. When she reaches Los Alamos, New Mexico, she learns why: he's working on a top secret government program. J-HF KLA

Larson, Kirby.  Duke.
In 1944 Hobie Hanson's father is flying B-24s in Europe, so Hobie decides to donate his beloved German shepherd, Duke, to Dogs for Defense in the hope that it will help end the war sooner--but when he learns that Duke is being trained for combat he is shocked, frightened and determined to get his dog back. J-HF LAR

Mochizuki, Ken. Baseball Saved Us.
A Japanese American boy learns to play baseball when he and his family are forced to live in an internment camp during World War II, and his ability to play helps him after the war is over. J-HF MOC

AFTER THE WAR 1945-

Gantos, Jack.  Dead End in Norvelt.
In the historic town of Norvelt, PA, 12-year-old Jack Gantos spends the summer of 1962 grounded for various offenses until he is assigned to help an elderly neighbor with a most unusual chore involving the newly dead, molten wax, twisted promises, Girl Scout cookies, underage driving, lessons from history, typewriting, and countless bloody noses. J-HF GAN

Philbrick, W.R.  Zane and the Hurricane:  A Story of Katrina.
A twelve-year-old boy and his dog become trapped in New Orleans during the horrors of Hurricane Katrina. J-HF PHI

Wiles,Deborah.  Countdown.
The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 forms the backdrop for this coming-of-age story 11-year-old Franny. Interspersed with Franny's story are photographs and text from songs, advertisements, and speeches from the 1960s. J-HF WIL

Williams-Garcia, Rita.  One Crazy Summer.
In the summer of 1968, after travelling from Brooklyn to Oakland, California, to spend a month with the mother they barely know, 11-year-old Delphine and her two younger sisters arrive to a cold welcome as they discover that their mother, a dedicated poet and printer, is resentful of the intrusion of their visit and wants them to attend a nearby Black Panther summer camp. J-HF WIL

Yelchin, Eugene.  Breaking Stalin’s Nose.
In the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union, ten-year-old Sasha idolizes his father, a devoted Communist, but when police take his father away and leave Sasha homeless, he is forced to examine his own perceptions, values, and beliefs. J-HF YEL