Historical Fiction
WHAT IS HISTORICAL FICTION?
Historical fiction is
fiction set in the
past. It contains a
rich mixture of
fact and fiction.
WHAT IS HISTORICAL FICTION?
Through novels and short
stories, an author may
combine factual
information about time,
place, events, and real
people of the period
with fictional
characters, dialogue,
and details.
WHAT IS HISTORICAL FICTION?
All of these help you
experience what it
was like to live during
the era when the story
takes place.
CHARACTERISTICS OF HISTORICAL
FICTION
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Presents a well-told
story that doesn’t
conflict with historical
records
Portrays characters
realistically
Artfully folds in
historical facts
Avoids stereotypes
and myths
MORE CHARACTERISTICS . . .
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Believable setting and
characters
Plot supported by
historical evidence
Tells a compelling story
first and relates
historical information
second
In 1925, fourteen-year-old
Ida Bidson secretly takes
over as the teacher when the
one-room schoolhouse in her
remote Colorado area closes
unexpectedly.
Falsely accused of theft
and murder, an orphaned
peasant boy in fourteenthcentury England flees his
village and meets a largerthan-life juggler who
holds a dangerous secret.
In a series of poems,
fifteen-year-old Billie Jo
relates the hardships of
living on her family's
wheat farm in Oklahoma
during the dust bowl years
of the Depression.
Kidnapped by the crew of
an Africa bound ship, a
thirteen-year-old boy
discovers to his horror that
he is on a slaver and his job
is to play music for the
exercise periods of the
human cargo.
Story of an AfricanAmerican family living
in Mississippi during the
Depression of the 1930s,
whose children do not
understand the prejudice
and discrimination aimed
at them.
In 1943, during the German
occupation of Denmark,
ten-year-old Annemarie
learns how to be brave and
courageous when she helps
shelter her Jewish friend
from the Nazis.
Thirteen-year-old Koly
enters into an ill-fated
arranged marriage and
must either suffer a
destiny dictated by India's
customs or find the
courage to oppose
tradition.
The ordinary interactions and
everyday routines of the
Watsons, an AfricanAmerican family living in
Flint, Michigan, are
drastically changed after they
go to visit Grandma in
Alabama in the summer of
1963.
In 1687 in Connecticut, Kit
Tyler, feeling out of place in
the Puritan household of her
aunt, befriends an old woman
considered a witch by the
community and suddenly
finds herself standing trial for
witchcraft.
Ten-year-old Bud, a motherless
boy living in Flint, Michigan,
during the Great Depression,
escapes a bad foster home and sets
out in search of the man he
believes to be his father--the
renowned bandleader, H.E.
Calloway of Grand Rapids.
Prince Brat deserves his name--he causes
trouble at every possible opportunity.
Luckily for him it's forbidden to strike a
prince, so the palace keeps a whipping
boy. Jemmy, plucked from the sewers to
become the royal whipping boy, dreams
of returning to his life as a rat-catcher.
One night the prince decides to run away
and orders Jemmy to join him. The two
boys embark on a comical series of
misadventures that include two
murderous highwaymen, a dancing bear,
and a journey through the rat-infested
sewers beneath the city.
Left alone to guard the
family's wilderness home in
eighteenth-century Maine, a
boy is hard-pressed to survive
until local Indians teach him
their skills.
When their father invites a
mail-order bride to come
live with them in their
prairie home, Caleb and
Anna are captivated by their
new mother and hope that
she will stay.