Historical Fiction American History

TEXAS EMPIRE MATT BRAUN Jack Jordan, an Indian fighter turned trailblazer and cattleman, is willing to risk it all for a spread of Texas land in the uncharted Llano Estacado—and for the adventure of a lifetime. Already a legend before turning thirty years old, Jordan's greatest quest still...

Long before she was one of the Little Rock Nine, Melba Pattillo Beals was a warrior. Frustrated by the laws that kept African Americans separate but very much unequal to whites, she had questions: Why couldn't she drink from a whites-only fountain? Why couldn't she feel safe beyond home - or even within the walls of church? Adults all told her: Hold your tongue. Be patient. Know your place. But Beals had the heart of a fighter - and the knowledge that her true place was a free one.

From the perspective of the young adult he was then, Francisco Jiménez describes the challenges he faced in his efforts to continue his education. During his college years, the very family solidarity that allowed Francisco to survive as a child is tested. Not only must he leave his family behind when he goes to Santa Clara University, but while Francisco is there, his father abandons the family and returns to Mexico.

In this audiobook we discuss the greatest US marshal of all time: Bass Reeves, the Texas Ranger that the character The Lone Ranger was based off of. Did you know that he was a real person? Learn about the man who was the real Lone Ranger! Share this and more amazing stories with your children! Give them a true historical foundation and a sense of belonging.

From the three-time Coretta Scott King Honor winning author of The Skin I'm In comes a poignant story about a southern girl far from home at an elite girls boarding school in the north, who must find the courage to be herself and to dream of a brighter future, set against the backdrop of the...

On Ash Wednesday in 1908, Swiss German immigrant Fritz Hirter arrives at his children’s school, where he is the lone custodian. But soon after lessons start, a fast-moving fire breaks out—its cause is unknown, but its effects are horrifying. Although Fritz is soon cleared of any responsibility for the catastrophe, the community continues to suspect him, supremely testing Fritz and his family.

This is the story of 12-year-old Annie Jewel Bounds, taken from letters and publications of the time; the story of a girl who would have gone off to war with her father, but when he is lost in battle, she convinces her mother to allow her to dress as a Yankee drummer boy and march off with a unit that will be discharged in just six weeks. Her adventure places her in the thick of the fire and smoke at the Battle of Wilson's Creek, Missouri. Fought on August 10, 1861, it is the first battle of the Civil War.

With the outbreak of Civil War, two slave brothers embark on a quest. Aided by the abolitionist underground movement, they escape the confines of the plantation to enlistment into the famed 54th Massachusetts colored infantry. Facing prejudice, their bravery under fire against the Confederate army, earning them respect from their white colleagues. The heroism of the 54th would forever go down in history.

MacKinlay Kantor, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and master storyteller, shows us how the South could have won the Civil War, how two small shifts in history (as we know it) in the summer of 1863 could have turned the tide for the Confederacy. What would have happened: to the Union, to Abraham Lincoln, to the people of the North and South, to the world?

It all begins when Soft Rain's teacher reads a letter stating that as of May 23, 1838, all Cherokee people are to leave their land and move to what many Cherokees called "the land of darkness"...the west. Soft Rain is confident that her family will not have to move, because they have just planted corn for the next harvest but soon thereafter, soldiers arrive to take nine-year-old Soft Rain and her mother to walk the Trail of Tears, leaving the rest of her family behind. On the journey, she is forced to eat the white man's food and sees many of her people die.

Deborah Sampson longs to break free. To be much more than a girl is allowed to be. Caught up in her country’s fight for independence, 18-year-old Deborah declares her own independence. She soon enlists in George Washington’s Continental Army, signing on as Robert Shurtliff. A young lady can’t battle the British—a man can! But being a soldier is hard, dangerous work. Can she keep her identity a secret? Can she prove herself in combat? Will she win her battle to choose her own path?

My two great-grandfathers, Jasper Smith and Ellwood Janney, served in the 18th Michigan Infantry during the American Civil War. In 1864 the 18th found itself in Decatur, Alabama, way down south across the Tennessee River. There, along with newly organized Black Union soldiers, they had to stop Confederate forces under General Hood and the notorious Nathan Bedford Forrest. Had they failed, Nashville likely would have fallen into Confederate control and caused the defeat of President Lincoln in the looming election.

Mark was born on the third of July. He grew up believing his birthday had no meaning other than the day he was born. At the end of the school year in the fifth grade, his strict but fair teacher, Mr. Herzog, tells Mark about a great battle that happened on his birthday. His teacher called it, "The defining moment in American history." Mark celebrates his eleventh birthday followed by America's independence in none other than Independence, Missouri.

In 1861, 16-year-old Joe Roberts leads a mundane life as far as he's concerned. His world spins in the same circle each day: working at his family's store, taking his sisters on boyish escapades, and bickering with his rogue of a cousin, Lucas. Joe can't understand why his mother allows Lucas to live and work with them after all the pain he caused their family. When war is declared, Joe is quick to join up and become a soldier with the 11th Pennsylvania Volunteers, but war is nothing like he imagined.

From Vienna's barricades to bleeding Kansas to the Civil War, August Bondi was continuously engaged in the struggle for freedom for half of his young adult life. As an old man, he wrote down what he remembered, and author Aaron Barnhart closely followed Bondi's autobiography in writing Firebrand. Barnhart also drew upon the 1958 novel Border Hawk: August Bondi, by children's author Lloyd Alexander (winner of the Newbery Medal and National Book Award), to bring Bondi's story back to life.

“Douglass sets a classic on fire with an inspired recasting that strips away time and all expectations."" — Rita Williams-Garcia, New York Times bestselling author of A Sitting in St. James From New York Times bestselling author Ryan Douglass comes a gripping and tender reimagining of...

The United States endured a bitter civil war and embarked on the complex process of Reconstruction, aiming to eliminate slavery and secure civil rights for African Americans in the South. Despite the ratification of constitutional amendments guaranteeing these rights, their full realization would not come for another century. Johnson, who assumed the presidency only after Lincoln's assassination, bears significant responsibility for this delay. His actions enabled the growth of Jim Crow laws and entrenched racial inequality throughout the South in Reconstruction's aftermath.

In early 1968 the grisly on-the-job deaths of two African-American sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, prompted an extended strike by that city's segregated force of trash collectors. Workers sought union protection, higher wages, improved safety, and the integration of their work force. Their work stoppage became a part of the larger civil rights movement and drew an impressive array of national movement leaders to Memphis, including, on more than one occasion, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. King added his voice to the struggle in what became the final speech of his life.

Pattie Mae adores and admires Uncle Buddy. He unsettles the dust and brings fresh ideas to Rehobeth Road. But when Buddy's deliberate inattention to the protocol of 1947 North Carolina lands him in jail for a crime against a white woman that he didn't commit, Pattie Mae and her family are suddenly set to journeying on the long, hard road that leads from loss and rage to forgiveness and pride.

A poignant biography as told to Olive Gilbert by Isabella Bomefree - a slave who later took the name of Sojourner Truth. She recounts the harshness of life under slavery, and after winner her freedom, became a vociferous abolitionist for which she has been long remembered and revered.