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 fourteenth-century
England flees his
village and meets a
larger-than-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.
Philip, an adolescent white
boy who is blinded in a
torpedo attack at sea during
World War II, acquires a new
type of vision, courage, and
love when he is stranded on
a tiny Caribbean island with
Timothy, a kind, elderly
black man.
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 ratinfested sewers beneath the city.
Left alone to guard the
family's wilderness home
in eighteenth-century
Maine, a boy is hardpressed to survive until
local Indians teach him
their skills.
Thirteen-year-old Rosie and
members of her family
travel from their Illinois farm
to Chicago in 1893 to visit
Aunt Euterpe and attend the
World's Columbian
Exposition which, along with
an encounter with Buffalo
Bill and Lillian Russell, turns
out to be a life-changing
experience for everyone.
Told in the voices of
eleven characters, about
two young girls, one
Jewish and the other
African-American, who
come to the attention of
the newly formed Ku
Klux Klan in a small
Vermont town in 1924.
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.
Dear America Diary
Series
Twelve-year-old Amber
Billows, upset to be moving
once again to follow her
father's reporting job,
cannot help loving Hawaii,
but the peace of her
tropical paradise is
shattered on December 7,
1941, when the Japanese
bomb Pearl Harbor.
Thirteen-year-old C.J.
records in a journal the
conditions of the Dust Bowl
that cause the Jackson
family to leave their farm in
Oklahoma and make the
difficult journey to
California, where they find a
harsh life as migrant
workers.
Thirteen-year-old
Madeline's diaries for 1941
and 1942 reveal her
experiences living on Long
Island during World War II
while her father is away in
the Navy.