Historical Fiction Young Readers

A duke has been murdered. The lord of Thorn Grove has been framed. And Fate, the elusive brother of Death, has taken up residence in a sumptuous palace nearby. He's hell-bent on revenge after Death took the life of the woman he loved many years ago...and now he’s determined to have Signa for himself, no matter the cost. Signa and her cousin Blythe are certain that Fate can save Elijah Hawthorne from wrongful imprisonment if the girls will entertain Fate’s presence. But the more time they spend with him, the more frightening their reality becomes.

Once upon a time, the kingdoms of Wales were rife with magic and conflict, and eighteen-year-old Mererid “Mer” is well-acquainted with both. She is the last living water diviner and has spent years running from the prince who bound her into his service. Under the prince’s orders, she located the wells of his enemies, and he poisoned them without her knowledge, causing hundreds of deaths. After discovering what he had done, Mer went to great lengths to disappear from his reach. Then Mer’s old handler returns with a proposition: use her powers to bring down the very prince that abused them both.

It’s 1889, barely twenty-five years after the Emancipation Proclamation, and a young Black family is tired of working on land they don’t get to own. So when Will and his father hear about an upcoming land rush, they set out on a journey from Texas to Oklahoma, racing thousands of others to the place where land is free—if they can get to it fast enough. But the journey isn’t easy—the terrain is rough, the bandits are brutal, and every interaction carries a heavy undercurrent of danger.

Seventeen-year-old Aderyn ("Ryn") only cares about two things: her family and her family's graveyard. And right now, both are in dire straits. Since the death of their parents, Ryn and her siblings have been scraping together a meager existence as gravediggers in the remote village of Colbren, which sits at the foot of a harsh and deadly mountain range that was once home to the fae. The problem with being a gravedigger in Colbren, though, is that the dead don't always stay dead.

Before she became a warrior, Ida B. Wells was an incomparable flirt with a quick wit and a dream of becoming a renowned writer. The first child of newly freed parents who thrived in a community that pulsated with hope and possibility after the Civil War, Ida had a big heart, big ambitions, and even bigger questions: How to be a good big sister when her beloved parents perish in a yellow fever epidemic?

After fighting in the Trojan War against her own people, Daphne is plagued by memories—of her family, of her shortcomings, of her lover, Apollo, and of the secrets he and the gods keep. As she reels from the horrendous sacrifice she had to make and her own failure in the battle for Troy, she knows the Titans are out there—just beyond the island of Aeaea where she has taken refuge—raging a war against the world. As Daphne struggles to regain her will to fight as well as rein in the new abilities that have been thrust upon her, the gods call for her help once more.

A year after saving the powers of Olympus by defeating Nyx, the Goddess of Darkness, Daphne is haunted by still-looming threats, her complicated feelings for the god Apollo, and the promise she made to the Olympian gods that she would help them again when they called upon her. When their command finally comes, it is deceptively simple: secure herself a spot as one of Queen Helen’s guards. A war is coming, and all of Sparta must be prepared.

Born in a South Africa divided by racism and hatred, little six-year-old Peekay learns that small can beat big. Armed with this knowledge, he resolves to take on the injustices of his country, and sets his heart on becoming the welterweight champion of the world. Peekay starts to take boxing lessons, makes new friends, collects cacti, and plays the piano. Above all, he learns to think with his head and then with his heart. Peekay discovers that nothing can defeat the determination to be true to yourself: This is the power of one.

Seven months ago, Edda was on the World War I front lines as one of two hundred “Hello Girls,” female switchboard operators employed by the US Army. She spent her nights memorizing secret connection codes to stay ahead of spying enemies, and her days connecting vital calls between platoons and bases and generals, all trying to survive—and win—a brutal war. Their lives were in Edda’s hands, and one day, in fateful seconds, everything went wrong.

When Tai Choi leaves her home in the Zhejiang province of China, she believes she’ll be visiting her grandmother. But in truth, despite her mother’s opposition, her father has sold her to pay his gambling debts. Alone and afraid, Tai Choi is put on a ship headed for San Francisco, known among the Chinese as Gold Mountain. When she arrives, she is forced to go by the new name listed on her paper documents: Tien Fu Wu. Her new life as a servant at a gambling den is hard. And if she is to survive, Tien Fu must persevere, and learn who to trust.

Demian, Historia de la juventud de Emil Sinclair, es una novela que relata en primera persona el paso de la niñez a la madurez de este personaje, del escritor alemán Hermann Hesse. La obra fue publicada por primera vez en 1919, en los tiempos que siguieron a la Gran Guerra. Emil Sinclair es un niño que ha pasado toda su vida en lo que él llama el Scheinwelt (mundo de ensueño o mundo de la luz), pero una mentira lo lleva a ampliar sus visiones del mundo y a conocer un personaje enigmático de nombre Max Demian.

12-year old Charley Cuffey is many things: a granddaughter, a best friend, and probably the best pitcher in all of Lee’s Mill. Set on becoming the first female pitcher to play professional ball, Charley doesn't need reminders from her best friend Cool Willie Green to know that she has lofty dreams for a Black girl in the American South. Even so, Nana Kofi's thrilling stories about courageous ancestors and epic journeys make it impossible not to dream big. She knows he has so many more to tell, but according to her parents, she isn't old enough to know about certain things.

Young Reader's Shakespeare returns, with another visually stunning and brilliantly rewritten version of one of the Bard's classic plays. Julius Caesar has become such a part of our culture that many people even quote from it without realizing they are doing so: phrases such as "the dogs of war," "it's Greek to me," and "the evil that men do" have become part of everyday English.

Among these biographies, listeners will find aviators and artists, politicians and pop stars, athletes and activists. The exceptional men featured include artist Aaron Douglas, civil rights leader John Lewis, dancer Alvin Ailey, filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, musician Prince, photographer Gordon Parks, tennis champion Arthur Ashe, and writer James Baldwin.

It’s 1927 and the strict laws of prohibition have done little to temper the roaring 20s nightlife, even in the nation’s capitol. Everyone knows the booze has never stopped flowing, especially amongst the rich and powerful, and seventeen-year-old Gertrude and her best friends Clara and Milly are determined to get a taste of freedom and liquor, propriety be damned. But after sneaking out of the Washington Female Seminary to visit a speakeasy, they return to discover that their controversial young headmistress, Mrs. Rose, has been murdered.

Raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the heart of Jim Crow, Dovey Johnson Roundtree felt the sting of inequality at an early age and made a point to speak up for justice. She was one of the first Black women to break the racial and gender barriers in the US Army when women were barely allowed to serve; a fierce attorney in the segregated courtrooms of Washington, DC; and a minister in Black churches, where women had never before had the chance to speak.

Irene Adler is no ordinary young lady. She's at the top of the ranks in the All Souls cohort, a competitive preparatory class reserved for Oxford's brightest minds. But her peers and professors don't know she's a lady at all. To them, she is Isaac Holland. Keeping up her disguise gets trickier when All Souls students start dying, one by one. Determined to find out who's responsible for the deaths, Irene—as Isaac—teams up with fellow classmate and roommate Sherlock Holmes to track down clues

It's a dangerous time for 13-year-old Clara and her family. They have just been imprisoned in Terezin (Terezinstadt), a ghetto in a medieval town near Prague - which was built to show the world how "well" the Nazis were treating Jews during the Second World War. Here Clara encounters hunger, disease and filthy living conditions. Even worse is the constant threat of being deported to concentration camps where the possibility of death awaits her.

Hand in Hand presents the stories of 10 men from different eras in American history, organized chronologically to provide a scope from slavery to the modern day. The stories are accessible, fully drawn narratives offering the subjects' childhood influences, the time and place in which they lived, their accomplishments and motivations, and the legacies they left for future generations as links in the "freedom chain".

Born into slavery, young Booker T. Washington could only dream of learning to read and write. After emancipation, Booker began a 500-mile journey, mostly on foot, to Hampton Institute, taking his first of many steps toward a college degree. When he arrived, he had just 50 cents in his pocket and a dream about to come true. The young slave who once waited outside of the schoolhouse would one day become a legendary educator of freedmen.