Young Teen Historical Fiction

Minamoto Yoshitsune should not have been a samurai. But his story is legend in this real-life saga. This epic warrior tale may sound like a novel, but this is the true story of the greatest samurai in Japanese history. When Yoshitsune was just a baby, his father went to war with a rival samurai family - and lost. His father was killed, his mother captured, and his surviving half-brother banished. Yoshitsune was sent away to live in a monastery. Skinny, small, and unskilled in the warrior arts, he nevertheless escaped and learned the ways of the samurai.

Lord Takeda has sent Risuko, Emi, and Toumi on a mission to the capital. The road is dangerous. The destination is treacherous. Risuko—the girl who just likes to climb— must make a choice that will have repercussions not only for Risuko's life and those of her friends, but possibly for all of Japan.

Aspiring young naturalist Celeste Rossan is determined to live a life of adventure and scientific discovery. But when her father loses everything, Celeste’s hopes of ever leaving her hometown are dashed…until she sees a narrow opportunity to escape to Paris and attend the 1867 Exposition Universelle. Celeste seizes her chance, but the elements overwhelm her before she can make it five miles. In desperation, she seeks refuge in an abandoned chateau, only to find herself trapped inside the den of an unknown species: a predator with an intelligence that rivals any human.

Twelve-year-old Sora and her family live under an iron set of rules: No travel without a permit. No criticism of the government. No absences from Communist meetings. Wear red. Hang pictures of the Great Leader. Don't trust your neighbors. Don't speak your mind. You are being watched. But war is coming, war between North and South Korea, between the Soviets and the Americans. War causes chaos - so war is the perfect time to escape. The plan is simple: Sora and her family will walk for weeks from their tiny northern village to the South Korean city of Busan.

What magical beings inhabit Earth’s waters? Some are as almost-familiar as the mer-people; some as strange as the thing glimpsed only as a golden eye in a pool at the edge of the Great Desert Kalarsham, where the mad god Geljdreth rules; or the unknowable, immense Kraken, dark beyond the darkness of the deepest ocean, who will one day rise and rule the world. Here are seven tales from the remarkable storytellers Robin McKinley and Peter Dickinson. Vividly imagined and written, they transform the simple element of water into something very powerful indeed.

Roland Inness desperately needs meat for his starving family, but he takes the wrong deer on the wrong nobleman's land. Worse yet, he uses his longbow, a weapon outlawed and suppressed by the Norman overlords of England. Now they are coming for him. With one shot the 14 year old peasant boy is launched on a desperate flight that takes him from the mountains of Derbyshire to the wild frontier of Wales and on to the court of Richard the Lionheart.

Born in a South Africa divided by racism and hatred, little six-year-old Peekay learns that small can beat big. Armed with this knowledge, he resolves to take on the injustices of his country, and sets his heart on becoming the welterweight champion of the world. Peekay starts to take boxing lessons, makes new friends, collects cacti, and plays the piano. Above all, he learns to think with his head and then with his heart. Peekay discovers that nothing can defeat the determination to be true to yourself: This is the power of one.

When Bree learns that her brother, Devin, her sister, Keely, and her friend, Lil, will set out for Ireland, she longs to go with them. Instead, Mikkel asks her to be a cook for voyage to Greenland. Somehow her excellent food becomes inedible and the Vikings think she's trying to sabotage their voyage.

The town of Wirrawee is emerging from war, slowly, like a flower after a cold snap. Businesses are starting to reopen, the school has re-commenced classes, and local farmers are gradually repossessing their land. But it's not the same Australia as before the war. A new nation exists just a few miles away, a new border that separates Australia from its invaders. Or does it?

From the author of Words in the Dust: an actionpacked YA novel set in a frighteningly plausible near future, about what happens when the States are no longer United. Danny Wright never thought he'd be the man to bring down the United States of America. In fact, he enrolled in the National Guard because he wanted to serve his country the way his father did. When the Guard is called up on the governor's orders to police a protest in Boise, it seems like a routine crowdcontrol mission...but then Danny's gun misfires, spooking the other soldiers and the already fractious crowd....

Jacky Faber makes waves, even when docked in her adopted city of Boston to attend to the business of Faber Shipping Worldwide. With big dreams and perhaps too much exuberance for the Puritan populace, she quickly finds herself at odds with the Women's Temperance Union and a town roiling over the arrival of hundreds of Irish laborers, brought in on Jacky's Lorelei Lee.

Eleven-year-old Kevin Cartwright can hardly believe his ears when his father, a brave soldier wounded in the Revolutionary War, announces that he is leaving Philadelphia and never coming back. He is heading into the untamed wilderness of New Jersey, where he hopes to find a peaceful place to raise Kevin and his little sister. But in 1783, New Jersey is filled with secret traps and hidden dangers. Before the family has traveled far, Kevin is captured by the mysterious Captain Grey and his murderous band of pirates. These lawless men of the sea say they have killed the boy’s father and sister. Will Kevin be next?

The fate of the world is in the hands of detective of the supernatural R. F. Jackaby and his intrepid assistant, Abigail Rook. An evil king is turning ancient tensions into modern strife, using a blend of magic and technology to push Earth and the Otherworld into a mortal competition. Jackaby and Abigail are caught in the middle as they continue to solve the daily mysteries of New Fiddleham, New England - like who's created the rend between the worlds, how to close it, and why zombies are appearing around town.

After a life of hurt and disappointment, Raya, the spiky-haired, Doc Marten-wearing 14-year-old decides it’s time to strike out on her own. She leaves the boring English village and what she's determined will be her last foster placement for the excitement of London. But it turns out she’s a witch, with the annoying habit of time-traveling - by accident. And a sarcastic witch’s cat Oscar tags along for the ride. Why would she fling herself into the midst of the Essex Witch Trials in 1645 England?

With World War II on their doorstep, the children of Greenwich, England, are being evacuated. But on the train meant to take them to safety, four of them decide they aren’t ready to leave home. They climb out the carriage window just in time, forging an unlikely friendship. With their school taken over by the fire service, they spend their days trying to be useful. Lawrence is building a secret machine.

Faith Sunderly leads a double life. To most people, she is reliable, dull, trustworthy - a proper young lady who knows her place as inferior to men. But inside, Faith is full of questions and curiosity, and she cannot resist mysteries: an unattended envelope, an unlocked door. She knows secrets no one suspects her of knowing. She knows that her family moved to the close-knit island of Vane because her famous scientist father was fleeing a reputation-destroying scandal.

Seventeen-year-old Eleanor is nothing like her hero Eleanor Roosevelt. She is timid and all together uncertain that she has much to offer the world. And as World War II rages overseas, Eleanor is consumed with worry for her Jewish relatives in Europe. When a chance encounter proves her to be a one-in-a-generation math whiz—a fact she has worked hard all her life to hide—Eleanor gets recruited by the US Army and entrusted with the ultimate challenge: to fine-tune a top-secret weapon that will help America defeat its enemies in World War II and secure the world's freedom.

A thrilling gothic horror novel about biracial twin sisters separated at birth, perfect for fans of Lovecraft Country and The Vanishing Half As infants, twin sisters Charlie Yates and Magnolia Heathwood were secretly separated after the brutal lynching of their parents, who died for loving...

Susanna desperately wants to join the circle of girls who meet every week at the parsonage. What she doesn’t realize is that the leader of the group, the malicious Ann Putnam, is about to set off a torrent of false accusations leading to the imprisonment and execution of countless innocent people. When Susanna puts the pieces together, she faces a painful choice.

Sans nouvelles de Jack depuis sa disparition, Hazel a abandonné tout espoir de le revoir. Désormais chirgurien accompli, elle trompe son chagrin en se consacrant exclusivement à sa passion. Mais être une femme de science dans un monde d'hommes n'est pas sans risques. Condamnée à mort pour avoir pratiqué un avortement, Hazel n'est sauvée que par une mystérieuse intervention royale.