Historical FictionLiterature Circles

February 5, 2014

Created by Ms. Maneck

Thirteen-year-old Jonathan wants more than anything to join in the War for Independence, but his father won’t let him. When he hears the call to arms, he borrows a gun from a local tavern and joins a militia—without telling his father.

Soon enough, Jonathan sees a battle and blood. When the sight of a dead family friend is too much to bear, he flees to the woods, only to be captured by enemy soldiers. Will Jonathan escape their relentless grasp? Will he ever see his parents again? Will he live long enough to see American Independence?

The Fighting Ground by Avi

Moose Flannigan has just moved to America’s most famous prison—Alcatraz. Moose and his sister, Natalie aren’t prisoners; they’re two of 23 kids that reside on Alcatraz Island with their families.

Along with the families of guards, cooks, electricians, and doctors, there are murderers, thieves, and kidnappers imprisoned on “Devil’s Island.” The most famous of all the prisoners is the notorious gangster, Al Capone.

Soon after moving to Alcatraz, Moose is lured into a money-making scheme by the warden’s daughter, Piper. The scheme involves Capone, and when Moose realizes he can use this connection to get his sister into a special school, he does all he can to get the gangster’s attention. Find out how the world’s most famous gangster helps a twelve year old kid in Al Capone Does My Shirts!

Al Capone Does My Shirts

By Gennifer Choldenko

There was once a village bred by evil. On the barren coast of Cornwall, England, lived a community who prayed for shipwrecks, a community who lured storm-tossed ships to crash upon the sharp rocks of their shore. They fed and clothed themselves with the loot salvaged from the wreckage; dead sailors' tools and trinkets became decorations for their homes. Most never questioned their murderous way of life.

Then, upon that pirates' shore crashed the ship The Isle of Skye. And the youngest of its crew members, 14-year-old John Spencer, survived the wreck. But would he escape the wreckers? This is his harrowing tale.

The Wreckers by Iain Lawrence

Thirteen-year-old Rosie Beckett has never strayed further from her family’s farm than a horse can pull a cart. Then a letter from Aunt Euterpe arrives, and everything changes. It’s 1893, the year of the World’s Columbian Exposition—the “wonder of the age”—otherwise known as the Chicago World’s Fair. Tucked inside the pages of the letter are train tickets to Chicago, because Aunt Euterpe is inviting the Becketts to come for a visit and go to the fair! For Rosie, it’s a summer of marvels—a summer she’ll never forget.

Fair Weather by Richard Peck

Click on the picture for a link to a book trailer about this book!

Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan

Twelve-year-old Samuel Collier is a lowly commoner on the streets of London. So when he becomes the page of Captain John Smith and boards the Susan Constant, bound for the New World, he can’t believe his good fortune. He’s heard that gold washes ashore with every tide. But beginning with the stormy journey and his first contact with the native people, he realizes that the New World is nothing like he imagined. The lush Virginia shore where they establish the colony of James Town is both beautiful and forbidding, and it’s hard to know who’s a friend or foe. As Samuel learns the language of the Algonquian Indians and observes Captain Smith’s wise diplomacy, Samuel begins to see that he can be whomever he wants to be in this new land.

Blood on the River by Elisa Carbone

Charley has longed to experience the glory of war and enlists in the Union army to avenge his brother's death and to escape from his previous Bowery life. Too young to be a soldier, he enlists as a drummer boy. During his first battle, Charley kills a man and is so traumatized by this that he skedaddles to the mountains of Virginia. It’s in the mountains that Charley is called upon to be truly brave…will he stand up to the challenge?

Charley Skedaddle by Patricia Beatty

The Revolution has begun, but for Samuel, the war seems distant from his life on the rugged frontier… but it won’t feel that way for long. Hunting in the woods one day, he begins to have a feeling that something is wrong. That inkling is intensified when he sees smoke rising in the direction of his settlement. He must get home, but Samuel dreads what he will find. Were his parents attacked while he wasn’t around to protect them?

Samuel reaches his settlement and there is no one there…at least no one left alive. Putting his hunting skills to use, he recognizes that his parents and others have been kidnapped.

Samuel puzzles over the mystery of why his parents’ lives were spared. But one thing he knows for sure: He must rescue his mother and father somehow.

Woods Runner by Gary Paulsen

“Grandchildren, you asked me about this medal of mine. There is much to be said about it. This small piece of metal holds a story that I was not allowed to speak for many winters. It is the true story of how Navajo Marines helped America win a great war. There is much that I must remember to speak for this medal…I must remember not only the great secret with which I was trusted, but also all that happened to me and those like me…I think I can do it well enough. After all, I was expected to remember, as were the other men trained with me. The lives of many men depended entirely on our memories…”

Code Talker by Joseph Bruchac

The year is 1812. A white trapper is murdered. And a young Chippewa stands accused.

Captured and shackled in leg irons and chains, Indian John is imprisoned in a settler’s loft to await his trial. All the while, thirteen-year-old Rebecca Carver sleeps and cooks and cleans below, terrified by the captive Indian in her own home.

As the trial approaches, the Chippewa man struggles to make sense of the white man’s court. In a world of crude frontier justice, where evidence is often overlooked in favor of vengeance, his young lawyer faces the wrath of the settlers who are hungry to see the Indian hanged for murder. And Rebecca must decide for herself what—and who—is right.

Crooked River by Shelley Pearsall

Things are pretty good for Anna and her older brother, Max. They do well in school and enjoy playing with their friends. There are whispers about what might happen to families like Anna’s, though, Jewish families; families with father’s like Anna’s who speak out against the rising power. One day her father disappears and Anna learns that he has traveled to Prague. He had been warned that he would be a wanted man by the Nazis depending on what happened in the upcoming election.

A few days before the election it is decided that the rest of the family would travel to meet up with Anna’s father. The train trip is dangerous for them, but where they go from there will be even more dangerous, as the Nazis gain power all over Europe.

When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr

Click on the picture for a link to a book trailer about this book!

This story is Billie Jo Kelby’s. It’s 1934, and Oklahoma famers are struggling to raise crops choked by continual dust storms. Her family, and those around her, are struggling to survive.

Billie Jo and her parents face these hard times together and, despite the never-ending dust, Billie Jo is happy. More than anything, Billie Jo loves to play the piano, and she has begun earning money performing. Ma and Pa are happy, too—soon Ma will give birth and at last Billie Jo will have a brother or sister.

Then a terrible accident occurs. Ma makes a mistake that will change Billie Jo’s life, forever.

Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse

Dovey Coe by Frances O’Roark Dowell

“My name is Dovey Coe, and I reckon it don’t matter if you like me or not. I’m here to lay the record straight, to let you know them folks saying I done a terrible thing are liars. I aim to prove it, too. I hated Parnell Caraway as much as the next person, but I didn’t kill him.”

Thus begins Dovey Coe’s story. She says what’s on her mind, and she’s the first to say she hates her sister’s suitor. When he ends up dead in the same room as Dovey, she goes on trial for murder. Who will get her out of this mess?

Kenny lives in Flint, Michigan with his mom, dad, brother Byron, and sister, Joey. Lately Byron’s been getting into trouble, so Kenny’s parents decide to do something about it—take him to Alabama, where their Grandma Sands lives. Maybe that country air will do him some good!

The trip to Birmingham is tougher than Kenny expected, and the south is more segregated than Kenny could ever have imagined. But it’s when they arrive in Birmingham, and his grandmother's church is bombed, that things really become frightening...

The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis

Joey is a warhorse, but he wasn’t always. Once, he was a farm horse and a gentle boy named Albert was his master. Then World War I came storming through and everything changed.

Albert’s father sells Joey to the army where the beautiful, red-bay horse is trained to charge the enemy, drag heavy artillery, and carry wounded soldiers not much older than Albert off of battlefields. Amongst the clamoring of guns and slogging through the cold mud, Joey wonders if the war will ever end. And if it does, will he ever find Albert again?

War Horse by Michael Morpurgo

Which book will you read?

Choose your top four choices and share with your teacher!