Historical Fiction for Fifth and Sixth Graders

Bibliography created by the Schaumburg Township District Library

FICTION BAUER MUELLER, P	*Neptune’s Honor: a Story of Loyalty and Love* by Pamela Bauer Mueller. Neptune Small was born into slavery in 1831 and became the childhood friend and servant of plantation heir Henry Lord King. Their devoted friendship evolved into a shared struggle to survive the Civil War.
FICTION BOLOGNESE, D.	*The Warhorse* by Don Bolognese. Lorenzo, son of the Duke's master armorer, longs to experience battle for himself, and thrusts himself into conflict when he learns of a planned attack against the Duke.
FICTION BORDEN, L.	*The Greatest Skating Race: a World War II Story from the Netherlands* by Louise Borden. During World War II in the Netherlands, a ten-year-old boy’s dream of skating in a famous race allows him to help two children escape to Belgium by ice skating past German soldiers and other enemies.
FICTION BRADLEY, K.	*The President’s Daughter* by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. A fictionalized account of ten-year-old Ethel Roosevelt’s early experiences in the White House after her father, Theodore Roosevelt, becomes president in 1901.
FICTION CHEANEY, J.	*The Playmaker* by J.B. Cheaney. While working as an apprentice in a London theater company in 1597, fourteen-year-old Richard uncovers a mystery involving the disappearance of his father and a traitorous plot to overthrow Queen Elizabeth.
FICTION CHIPMAN, L.	*From the Lighthouse* by Liz Chipman. In 1938, thirteen-year-old Louise Bloom tries to figure out what caused her mother to leave her, her three brothers, their father, and the lighthouse on the Hudson River they call home.
FICTION COULOUMBIS, A.	*Summer’s End* by Audrey Couloumbis. Three teenaged cousins worry about their uncle who is missing in Vietnam, their brothers, the one who was drafted and the two who are dodging the draft, and the effects of their absence on the four generations gathered at the family farm in the summer of 1965.
FICTION DANTICAT, E.	*Anacaona, Golden Flower* by Edwidge Danticat. Beginning in 1490, Anacaona keeps a record of her life as a possible successor to the supreme chief of Xaragua, as wife of the chief of Maguana, and as a warrior battling the first white men to arrive in the West Indies, ravenous for gold.
FICTION DENENBERG, B.	*Pandora of Athens: 399 B.C.* by Barry Denenberg. In 399 B.C. in Athens, thirteen-year-old Pandora dreads her upcoming marriage to a man twice her age, but a chance meeting with the philosopher Socrates encourages her to question traditional female roles and to seek her own truth.
FICTION DUBLE, K.	*Hearts of Iron* by Kathleen Benner Duble. In early 1800s Connecticut, fifteen-year-old Lucy tries to decide whether to marry her childhood friend who unhappily toils at the Mt. Riga iron furnace or the young man from Boston who has come to work in her father’s store.
FICTION EUBANK, P.	*Seaman’s Journal: on the Trail with Lewis and Clark* by Patricia Reeder Eubank. Seaman, the Newfoundland Dog belonging to Meriwether Lewis, keeps an account of their adventures during the journey to the Pacific.
FICTION FINLEY, M.	Violet’s Amazing Summer: Book Two of the A life of Faith: Violet Travilla Series, Based on the Characters by Martha Finley. Violet is excited to spend the summer with her Aunt in Ohio, but when a tragedy occurs will her faith be strong enough?
FICTION FRAUSTINO, L.	*I Walk in Dread: the Diary of Deliverance Trembley, Witness to the Salem Witch Trials* by Lisa Rowe Fraustino. Twelve-year-old Deliverance Trembley writes in her diary about the fears and doubts that arise during the 1692 witch hunt and trials in Salem Village, Massachusetts, especially when her pious friend, Goody Corey, is condemned as a witch.
FICTION HALE, M.	*The Truth about Sparrows* by Marian Hale. Twelve-year-old Sadie promises that she will always be Wilma’s best friend when their families leaves drought-stricken Missouri in 1933, but once in Texas, Sadie learns that she must try to make a new home and new friends, too.
FICTION HART, A.	*Anna’s Blizzard* by Alison Hart. Having never excelled at schoolwork, twelve-year-old Anna discovers that she may know a few things about survival when the 1888 Children’s Blizzard traps her and her classmates in their Nebraska schoolhouse.
FICTION HENEGHAN, J.	*The Grave* by James Heneghan. Thirteen-year-old Tom, an unhappy foster child in Liverpool, falls into a massive open grave and is transported to Ireland in 1847, where he finds himself in the midst of the deadly potato famine.
FICTION HULME, J.	*Climbing the Rainbow* by Joy N. Hulme. In this sequel to The Other Side of the Door, ten-year-old Dora makes a quilt to record her experiences as she finally starts school and her Mormon family’s efforts to secure homestead rights for their farm in New Mexico.
FICTION HURST, C.	*Torchlight* by Carol Otis Hurst. In 1864, fifth-grader Charlotte befriends an Irish-American girl at school and tries to understand the prejudices between the Irish and the Yankees in her town of Westfield, Massachusetts. Based on Historical events.
FICTION KUDLINSKI, K.	*My Lady Pocahontas* by Kathleen V. Kudlinski. Nuttagwon, daughter of a minor Pamunkey chief, is still a girl when Pocahontas’s, vision of peace between their people and the newly-arrived English colonists bonds the two in a lifelong friendship as they work together to make the vision a reality.
FICTION LAFAYE, A.	*Worth* by A. LaFaye. After breaking his leg, eleven-year-old Nate feels useless because he cannot work on the family farm in nineteenth-century Nebraska, so when his father brings home an orphan boy to help with the chores, Nate feels even worse.
FICTION LAWLOR, L.	*The School at Crooked Creek* by Laurie Lawlor. Living on the 19th-century Indiana frontier with his parents and irritable older sister Louise, six-year-old Beansie dreads his first day of school, but his resilience surprises even his sister.
FICTION LYONS, M.	*Letters from a Slave Boy: the Story of Joseph Jacobs* by Mary Lyons. A fictionalized look at the life of Joseph Jacobs, son of a slave, told in the form of letters that he might have written during his life in pre-Civil War North Carolina, on a whaling expedition, in New York, New England, and finally in California during the Gold Rush.
FICTION MAZER, H.	*Heroes Don’t Run: a Novel of the Pacific War* by Harry Mazer. To honor his father who died during the Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor, seventeen-year-old Adam eagerly enlists in the Marines in 1944, survives boot camp, and faces combat on the tiny island of Okinawa.
FICTION MCKISSACK, P.	*Abby Takes a Stand* by Patricia C. McKissack. Gee recalls for her grandchildren what happened in 1960 in Nashville, Tennessee, when she, aged ten, passed out flyers while her cousin and other adults held sit-ins at restaurants and lunch counters to protest segregation.
FICTION MURPHY, R.	*Black Angels* by Rita Murphy. The summer of 1961 brings change to eleven-year-old Celli and her town of Mystic, Georgia, when her beloved Sophie becomes involved in the Civil Rights Movement and Celli learns a secret about the father who left her and her family long ago.
FICTION MYERS, A.	*Flying Blind* by Anna Myers. Ben Riley and Murphy, the pet macaw, know the killing of egrets for their feathers must be stopped, but the lines between right and wrong become blurred when Ben meets two orphans who rely on feathering to stay alive.
FICTION PARKINSON, S.	*Kathleen: the Celtic Knot* by Siobhan Parkinson. Twelve-year-old Dubliner Kathleen Delaney is given the chance to take Irish dancing lessons in 1937 and discovers she has a talent for it.
FICTION REICHART, G.	*A Bag of Lucky Rice* by George Reichart. Rusty, an old prospector, and Lo Fat and Lee, two Chinese living in the small mining town of Rhyolite, Nevada, become friends and share the excitement of finding gold in the Amargosa Desert.
FICTION RINALDI, A.	*An Unlikely Friendship: a Novel of Mary Todd Lincoln and Elizabeth Keckley* by Ann Rinaldi. Relates the lives of Mary Todd Lincoln, raised in a wealthy Virginia family, and Lizzy Keckley, a dressmaker born a slave, as they grow up separately then become best friends when Mary’s childhood dream of living in the White House comes true.
FICTION ROBERTSON, B.	*Marguerite Makes a Book* by Bruce Robertson. In medieval Paris, Marguerite helps her nearly blind father finish painting an illuminated manuscript for his patron, Lady Isabelle.
FICTION ROBINET, H.	*Walking to the Bus-Rider Blues* by Harriette Gillem Robinet. Twelve-year-old Alfa Merryfield, his older sister, and their grandmother struggle for rent money, food, and their dignity as they participate in the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott in the summer of 1956.
FICTION SWAIN, G.	*Chig and the Second Spread* by Gwenyth Swain. Despite her small stature, eight-year-old Chig makes large contributions to her southern Indiana community during the Great Depression.
FICTION TATE, E.	*Celeste’s Harlem Renaissance* by Eleanora E. Tate. In 1921, thirteen-year-old Celeste leaves North Carolina to stay with her glamorous Aunt Valentina in Harlem, New York, where she discovers the vibrant Harlem Renaissance in full swing, even though her aunt’s life is not exactly what she was led to believe.
FICTION TAYLOR, T.	Billy the Kid by Theodore Taylor. Young William Bonney is talked into committing his first train robbery, unaware that his cousin and best friend, Wilie Monroe, is now sheriff of the nearest town, and his fellow robbers are already wanted in four states.
FICTION WEATHERFORD, C.	*Freedom on the Menu: the Greensboro Sit-ins* by Carole Boston Weatherford. The 1960 civil rights sit-ins at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina are seen through the eyes of a young Southern black girl.
FICTION WEIL, S.	*My Guardian Angel* by Sylvie Weil. In 11th century Troyes, France, Elvina, the unusual granddaughter of renowned Jewish rabbi Solomon Ben Isaac, who prefers studying and writing to activities considered respectable for girls, takes a great risk by helping a young boy who has run away from a group of Christian Crusaders.
FICTION WILSON, D.	*Black Storm Comin’* by Diane Lee Wilson. Twelve-year-old Colton, son of a black mother and a white father, takes a job with the Pony Express in 1860 after his father abandons the family on their California-bound wagon train, and risks his life to deliver an important letter that may affect the growing conflict between the North and South.
FICTION WILSON, J.	*Battle Scars* by John Wilson. Nate, from South Carolina; Walt, his cousin from Canada; and Sunday, a black man who communicates in sign language because he has no tongue, come together during the Civil War.
FICTION WINTER, J.	*The 39 Apartments of Ludwig van Beethoven* by Jonah Winter. Ludwig van Beethoven and his five legless pianos keep moving from one apartment to another when his neighbors complain about the noise.
FICTION YEP, L.	The Traitor: Golden Mountain Chronicles, 1885 by Laurence Yep. In 1885, a lonely, illegitimate American boy and a lonely, Chinese-American boy develop an unlikely friendship in the midst of prejudices and racial tension in their coal-mining town of Rock Springs, Wyoming.