Itasca Community Library
500 West Irving Park Road | Itasca, IL 60143 | 630-773-1699
Recommended Readings for Historical Fiction
Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
Seventeen-year-old Richie Perry, just out of his Harlem high school, enlists in the Army in the summer of 1967 and spends a devastating year on active duty in Vietnam. Y MYE PAPERBACK
Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson
In 1793 Philadelphia, sixteen-year-old Matilda Cook, separated from her sick mother, is forced to cope with the horrors of a yellow fever epidemic. Y AND
For Freedom by Kimberly Bradley
Suzanne, a fifteen-year-old rising opera star, becomes a spy for the French Resistance during World War II (based on a true story). Y BRA
Girl in a Cage by Jane Yolen
The daughter of Scotland's rebel King Robert the Bruce is held captive in a cage by the King of England who is using her as bait to capture her father. Y YOL
Guerrilla Season by Pat Hughes
During the Civil War in Missouri in 1863, Matt is torn between fighting to protect his family's farm or traveling north with the rest of his family to stay with his grandparents. Y HUG
Mary, Bloody Mary by Carolyn Meyer
Mary Tudor, who would reign briefly as Queen of England during the mid sixteenth century, tells the story of her troubled childhood as daughter of King Henry VIII. Y MEY
Mississippi Trial, 1955 by Chris Crowe
In Mississippi in 1955, Hiram finds himself at odds with his grandfather over issues surrounding the kidnapping and murder of fourteen-year-old Emmett Till, an African American boy from Chicago. Y CRO
Numbering All the Bones by Ann Rinaldi
13-year-old Eulinda, a house slave on a Georgia plantation, does not know what to do with her life after Abraham Lincoln declares that slaves are free. Y RIN
Ransom of Mercy Carter by Caroline Cooney
In 1704, eleven-year-old Mercy and her family and neighbors are captured by Mohawk Indians and made to hike 300 miles north to Canada to begin a new life. Y COO
Soldier X by Don Wulffson
In 1943 sixteen-year-old Erik experiences the horrors of war when he is drafted into the German army and sent to fight on the Russian front. Y WUL
Stones in Water by Donna Jo Napoli
A Venetian boy and two of his friends, one who is Jewish, are forcibly taken by the Nazis from a movie theater in Italy and put into a work camp. Y NAP
Storm Warriors by Elisa Carbone
Driven from his home by the Ku Klux Klan, twelve year old Nathan moves with his family to Pea Island where he learns what it takes to be surfman for the U.S. Life Saving Service in the 1890’s. J CAR
The River Between Us by Richard Peck
During the early days of the Civil War, the Pruitt family takes in two mysterious young ladies who have fled New Orleans to come north to Illinois. Y PEC
Voyage of Ice by Michele Torrey
In 1851, fifteen-year-old Nick and his older brother, longing to be whalers, sign on as hands on the whaling ship Sea Hawk, and find that the journey is full of hardship and unexpected dangers. Y TOR
