Historical Literature For Teens

A soaring story that will sweep listeners from the docks of China to the court of Kublai Khan as young Haoyou learns to ride the winds strapped to a great scarlet kite in the traveling circus of the Great Miao.

Based on the true life story of Anne Burras, First Lady of Jamestown shares the excitement, sorrow, and grit of 17th Century Jamestown. When tragedy strikes, young Anne is left as the lone woman among hundreds of men in the fledgling Virginia colony, forced to forge a new life for herself despite the confines of her culture and gender. From heartache to love, and from tragic loss to heroic survival in the harshest of conditions, Anne's determination and fortitude through her life's challenges inspires all who learn of her story.

In the Dirty Thirties, jobs were hard to come by. Having lost her father and her home in southern Alberta, Tilly McCormack is thrilled when her application for a position as a chambermaid at the prestigious Banff Springs Hotel, one of Canada’s great railway hotels, is accepted. Tilly loves her new life in the Rocky Mountain town and the people she meets there. Local trail guide Ryan Blake is taken with Tilly’s sparkling blue eyes and mischievous sense of humor and thinks she is just the girl for him.

In King Biscuit, Michael Loyd Gray returns once again to the fictional small town of Argus, Illinois, (the setting of his novels Well Deserved, Not Famous Anymore, and The Last Stop), to tell a coming-of-age story set in 1966. With the Vietnam War hovering in the background. Seventeen-year-old Billy Ray Fleener, frustrated by the narrow confines of Argus, seeks adventure and a look at the wider world in a novel that puts him on a collision course with the famous as well as infamous.

When tragedy strikes, Victoria Ravenwood inherits the crumbling estate of Ravenfell Manor, hoping to find solace within its ivy-choked walls. Instead, she discovers a house alive with sorrow, secrets, and whispers of the dead. Gabriel Allward has guarded Ravenfell for years, his mysterious presence as rooted as the stones themselves. Cold and distant, he carries a secret that binds him to the estate—a truth too dangerous to share. Yet Victoria is drawn to him, even as the shadows close in.

It’s Christmastime, 1919. Three years before, seventeen-year-old Margot Allan, a respectable vicar’s daughter, fell passionately in love. But she lost her fiancé, Harry, to the Great War. In turn, she gained a desperate secret, one with the power to ruin her life and her family’s reputation, a secret she guards at all costs. Now Margot’s family is gathering at the vicarage for the first time since the War ended. And Harry, it turns out, isn’t dead. He’s alive and well, and looking for answers.

Young Nate Lawton is caught between the rigors of the fledgling United States Navy's discipline and the demands of his ambitious Captain. Nate seems doomed to pay the price of his newly appointed rank of Acting First Lieutenant on the USS Hancock, a brig fresh from the shipyard. He becomes the captain's scapegoat, and the target of the crew's hatred. He must choose between his patriotic duty, and the implicit responsibility of his office.

Two years after being airlifted out of war-torn Vietnam, Matt Pin is haunted: by bombs, by the family - and terrible secret - he left behind. Now, inside a caring adoptive home in the United States, a series of events force him to choose between silence and candor, blame and forgiveness, fear and freedom.

Nastia is no traitor. She is a fearless pilot, the daughter of revolutionaries, and now, as the Second World War descends on Russia, she must fight to defend the glorious Motherland. But all is not as it seems and when the battles begin, secrets are revealed and everything that Nastia once knew is challenged.

Billie has lived with her great-aunt ever since her mom passed away and her dad left. Billie's big brother, Leo, is about to leave, too, for the warfront. But first, she gets one more weekend with him at the ranch. Billie's surprised when Leo brings home a fellow Marine from boot camp, Denny. She has so much to ask Leo - about losing her best friend and trying to find their father - but Denny, who is Navajo, or Diné, comes with something special: a gorgeous, but injured, stray dog. As Billie cares for the dog, whom they name Bear, she and Bear grow deeply attached to each other.

It has been five years since Justus lost his father. On the eve of his thirteenth birthday, when the community ceremonially plans to deem him a man, tragedy strikes. Forced to flee his home, family, and everything he has ever known, The Evolution of Justus is a City of Refuge story filled with destructive anger toward God and one boy's struggle to become a man. Can a boy become a man without a father? Or will tragedy be his demise before his chance to rise? How does one process the loss of innocence caused by traumatic events?

When Thalia, Kalliope, and Charis set off to Regency London for their first Season, they each have clear goals―few of which include matrimony. Thalia means to make her mark among the intelligentsia and publish her poetry, Charis hopes to earn her place among the scientific elite, and Kalliope aims to take the fashionable ton by storm. But this Season, it doesn’t take long for things to fall apart. Can this roller-coaster Season find its happily ever after?

More than 20,000 American Indians served in the Civil War, yet their stories have often been left out of the history books. In Deadly Aim, Sally M. Walker explores the extraordinary lives of Michigan’s Anishinaabe sharpshooters. These brave soldiers served with honor and heroism in the line of duty, despite enduring broken treaties, loss of tribal lands, and racism.

Prince Alexander's mind has been touched by an incomprehensible evil, even as his betrothed travels from afar to unite their kingdoms against a terrible darkness that threatens both realms: the Spirit Eaters. From the distant shores of Illyria to a small deserted island, the deadly consequences of Smoke Blood magic loom, and lost civilizations emerge to reveal the existence of a weapon that may do the impossible - kill the last living god.

When a suspicious accident occurs at the famous Dinsmore Chocolate Factory in Sinclair, Kansas, Caroline Lang goes undercover as a factory worker to investigate the circumstances surrounding the event and how the factory treats its youngest employees - the child workers. Caroline' s fervent faith, her difficult childhood, and compassionate heart drove her to her job as an investigator for the Labor Commission and she is compelled to see children freed from such heavy adult responsibilities, to allow them to pursue an education.

Vlad Dracula has long lived in the shadows of his bloodthirsty father, the voivode, and his older brother, Mircea. Despite their cruelty, Vlad has yearned to prove himself worthy of the throne his whole life. In the cold halls of the voivode's palace, Vlad can only rely on his cousin and closest friend, Andrei Musat. When Vlad and Andrei meet Ilona Csáki, the daughter of an influential boyar, they each find themselves drawn to her. But then Ilona is betrothed to Mircea as part of a political alliance, and Vlad's resentfulness of his brother begins to seethe into something far darker.

The problem with the devil isn’t that he's evil; the problem is that he's charming. When a violent, decades-long feud between two powerful men comes to a head in the small settlement of Bladestay, Colorado, cunning resident Theo Creed must use her wits to stay alive. Disguising herself as a young boy, seventeen-year-old Theo bluffs her way into the inner circle of August Gains, the magnetic leader of the violent gang that has descended on her town. But the deeper Theo gets into the con, the more she starts to question her loyalties.

The Legal Lackey, Book 3 of the Walking Y Saga. Running from the law, Malvin Wolf, Esquire, teams up with his old friend, Senator Bell. Using his unorthodox skills, Malvin creates wanted evidence and manufactures precedents to hang the foreman, lock up the orphans, and destroy Woody to make the ranch land in the Senator’s lap. But Hardy’s dumb colored cook act gives Woody’s crew warning. Tony attacks both Senator Bell and Judge Hawthorne revolver bared in the middle of the night. Jennifer lashes out using tricks drummed into her head by her Uncle, John Keegan.

When Gwen witnesses her friends death by a creature she didn't think existed she finds herself accused of his murder. On the run from the very beast that killed her friend, she finds an ally in the ghostly vigilante The Phantom Archer. He protects her and together they discover that there is a reason the beast is hunting her and far more monsters are going to be on her trail...

When the guns fall silent on April 19, 1775, Whitley Endicott is elbows deep in blood. Haunted by the ghosts of those who died for the cause, the young surgeon is determined to save lives and free the spirits of the dead. The only obstacle: she isn't a man. Men's clothes conceal her gender but can't hide her skills, which earn her a place of trust at Fort Ticonderoga as the American Revolution unfolds. Officers and soldiers alike recognize her innate sense of honor, entrusting her with their lives—and their secrets.