Revolution, Civil War, and Reconstruction Books & Novels
Johnny Tremain
by Esther Forbes
This story is sent in the time of the Revolutionary War.  It's about a boy named Johnny Tremain, who is an orphan and his role in the war.
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Across Five Aprils
by Irene Hunt
This novel is about Jethro Creighton.  It covers how the Civil War impacted him from the age of 9 to 14.

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My Brother Sam is Dead
by Esther Forbes
Tim Meeker has always looked up to his brother Sam, who has now joined the American Revolution. His parents support King George. Tim will have to make a choice — between the Revolutionaries and the Redcoats and between his brother and his father.
 Westward Expansion Books & Novels
Hattie Ever After
by Kirby Larson
After leaving Uncle Chester's homestead claim, orphan Hattie Brooks dreams big. She wants to be a reporter. Nothing can squash her desire to write for a big city newspaper.


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✯​Boundless
by Kenneth Oppel
James is a railroad executive traveling with his son Will on the first journey of the Boundless, the largest train ever assembled. Among the 947 cars is a circus, and Will befriends Maren, a beautiful high wire walker. Will learns that a plot is afoot to steal treasure, including the golden spike, from the vault-like mausoleum car.  Oh and don't forget about BIGFOOT!
The Captain's Dog
by Roland Smith
Born the runt of his litter and gambled away to a rusty old river man, the Newfoundland pup Seaman doesn’t imagine his life will be marked by any kind of glory. But when he meets Captain Meriwether Lewis, Seaman finds himself on a path that will make history. 
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Immigration Books & Novels
Dragon's Gate
by Laurence Yep
Set in and around 1867, this coming-of-age story combines Chinese and United States (particularly California) history in the tale of Otter, a 14-year-old Chinese boy who is forced to flee his country and join his father and uncle in California. There his unrealistic expectations of life in the U.S. come up against the reality of the Chinese immigrants' harsh experiences there.


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Dragonwings
by Laurence Yep
Will Windrider take to the skies? Moon shadow is eight years old when he sails from China to join his father, Windrider, in America. Windrider lives in San Francisco and makes his living doing laundry. Father and son have never met. But Moon Shadow grows to love and respect his father and to believe in his wonderful dream. And Windrider, with Moon Shadow's help is willing to endure the mockery of the other Chinese, the poverty, the separation from his wife and country'even the great earthquake'to make his dream come true.
Grandfather's Journey
by Allen Say

​Home becomes elusive in this story about immigration and acculturation, pieced together through old pictures and salvaged family tales. Both the narrator and his grandfather long to return to Japan, but when they do, they feel anonymous and confused: "The funny thing is, the moment I am in one country, I am homesick for the other."
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Industrialization & Progressive Era Books & Novels
The Jungle
by Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair's dramatic and deeply moving story exposed the brutal conditions in the Chicago stockyards at the turn of the nineteenth century and brought into sharp moral focus the appalling odds against which immigrants and other working people struggled for their share of the American dream. 
The Remarkable Rough Riding Life of Theodore Roosevelt
by  Cheryl Harness
A biography of Teddy Roosevelt including his participation in the Spanish American War,  his part in the Progressive Movement, and his presidency.

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Hear My Sorrow
by Deborah Hopkinson
This is the Diary of Angela Denoto, 
a Shirtwaist Worker.  This involves the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.



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World War I Books & Novels
Terrorist: Gavrilo Princip, the Assassin Who Ignited World War I
by Lois Lowry
Little is known about Gavrilo Princip, the young Serbian nationalist who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and set in motion the events leading to World War I. The 9/11 attacks in New York City caused the Henrik Rehr to wonder what drove ordinary people to become terrorists. This gripping graphic novel imagines the details that drove the young man from poverty-stricken Bosnia to contemplate murder as the only possible solution.
War Horse
by Michael Morpurgo

​In 1914, Joey, a beautiful bay-red foal with a distinctive cross on his nose, is sold to the army and thrust into the midst of the war on the Western Front. With his officer, he charges toward the enemy, witnessing the horror of the battles in France. But even in the desolation of the trenches, Joey's courage touches the soldiers around him and he is able to find warmth and hope. But his heart aches for Albert, the farmer's son he left behind. Will he ever see his true master again?
All Quiet on the Western Front
by Michael Morpurgo
The book describes the German soldiers' extreme physical and mental stress during the war, and the detachment from civilian life felt by many of these soldiers upon returning home from the front.







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1920's & Great Depression Books & Novels
Zora and Me
by Victoria Bond and T.R. Simon
This novel is based on the childhood of author and folklorist Zora Neale Hurston. It takes place around 1900, during the year Hurston was in the fourth grade and living (and telling stories) in Eatonville, an all-black community in Florida.
Moon over Manifest
by Clare Vanderpool
The story, which is set in southeast Kansas during the Depression, moves between 1936 when 12-year-old Abilene Tucker comes to Manifest, Kansas, and 1918 during her father's youth there and includes mysteries and the search for home.
✯​No Promises in the Wind
by Christopher Paul Curtis

​This novel takes place in 1932 during the Great Depression. The book is about growing up during the Great Depression, that meant growing up fast as young Josh soon learned.

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Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry
by Mildred D. Taylor
One of eight books about the Logan family based on the author's family history, the novel focuses on the hardships the black farming family faces in Mississippi during the Depression.




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✯​Al Capone Does My Shirts
by Gennifer Choldenko
Is a historical fiction novel for young adults by author Gennifer Choldenko. In this story, Moose Flanagan and his family move from Santa Monica to Alcatraz Island. The move was caused by the father's new job positions as an electrician and as a guard in the well known Alcatraz prison.
Bud, Not Buddy
by Christopher Paul Curtis
It's 1936, in Flint, Michigan. Ten-year-old Bud may be a motherless boy on the run, but he's on a mission. His momma never told him who his father was, but she left a clue: posters of Herman E. Calloway and his famous band, the Dusky Devastators of the Depression! Bud's got an idea that those posters will lead to his father. Once he decides to hit the road and find this mystery man, nothing can stop him.
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World War II Books & Novels
Number the Stars
by Lois Lowry
It’s 1943 in Nazi-occupied Denmark, and the Jews are about to be rounded up and sent to the death camps. Annemarie Johannesen’s best friend Ellen Rosen is Jewish. The Johannesen family helps Ellen’s parents go into hiding and take Ellen into their own home, pretending she is part of their family. Narrated by 10-year-old Annemarie, this book vividly portrays the Nazi threat and the courage it takes to help friends while possibly endangering your own family. This moving and suspenseful book is based on true events.
​✯Prisoner B-3087
by Lois Lowry
Survive. At any cost.
10 concentration camps.
10 different places where you are starved, tortured, and worked mercilessly.
It's something no one could imagine surviving.
But it is what Yanek Gruener has to face.





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​✯​The Book Theif
by Markus Zusak
Death himself narrates the World War II-era story of Liesel Meminger from the time she is taken, at age nine, to live in Molching, Germany, with a foster family in a working-class neighborhood of tough kids, acid-tongued mothers, and loving fathers who earn their living by the work of their hands.




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✯​Elephant Run
by Roland Smith
The main character is Nicholas Freestone, a 12 year-old boy, tamed and simple, who is sent to live by his mother with his father on the family teak plantation, which requires toughness and strength, to escape the bombing in London. When the Japanese invade Burma, they take over the plantation, sending Nick's father, Jackson Theodore Freestone III, to a prison camp. Leaving Nick to escape and try to save his father with the help of some friends and with the danger of some enemies.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
by John Boyne
Young Bruno lives a wealthy lifestyle in prewar Germany along with his mother, elder sister, and SS Commandant father. The family relocates to the countryside where his father is assigned to take command a prison camp. A few days later, Bruno befriends another youth, strangely dressed in striped pajamas, named Shmuel who lives behind an electrified fence. Bruno will soon find out that he is not permitted to befriend his new friend as he is a Jew, and that the neighboring yard is actually a prison camp for Jews awaiting extermination.
Diary of Anne Frank
by Anne Frank
Discovered in the attic in which she spent the last years of her life, Anne Frank's remarkable diary has since become a world classic—a powerful reminder of the horrors of war and an eloquent testament to the human spirit.




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Cold War & Civil Rights Movement Books & Novels
Trilogy: 3 Novles of the 1960s for Young Readers
by Deborah Wiles
The first in a trilogy, this novel is about an 11-year-old girl and her family in 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Photos and other artifacts from the time period add to the book's appeal.
Inside Out and Back Again
by Thanhha Lai
This novel by Thanhha Lai is based on her life, leaving Vietnam in the mid-'70s when she was 10 and the difficult adjustment to life in the United States.

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✯​The Watson's Go To Birmingham
by Christopher Paul Curtis
The Watsons set out on a family road trip where their experiences give them a newfound courage to stand up for what is right and helps them grow stronger as a family in the process.
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