Historical Fiction for Middle Schoolers
Send your tween back in time with these retellings of historical events big and small.
Anne of Green Gables
by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Nearly a century old, this series about an orphan growing up on Canada's Prince Edward Island still resonates with romantic girls everywhere.
Fallen Angels
by Walter Dean Myers
Best for teens, this Vietnam novel follows a smart, African-American teen and his platoon as they experience the hardships of war.
Esperanza Rising
by Pam Munoz Ryan
After her father's murder, 14-year-old Esperanza and her family flee to Great Depression America, where they trade their former life of privilege for a new one on a farm labor camp.
The Journal of Ben Uchida
by Barry Denenberg
My Name Is America series
By turns humorous and heartbreaking, this book tells the story of a 12-year-old prisoner in one of the Japanese internment camps of World War II.
Kristina
by Carolyn Meyer
Royal Diaries series
Meet Kristina, the Girl King of Sweden, when she's almost 12 and eschewing feminine practices (but reveling in the study of military tactics).
Morning Girl
by Michael Dorris
Travel back to the time of Christopher Columbus to see the experiences of a Native American girl learning to live with the new people in her community.
Penny from Heaven
by Jennifer L. Holm
Get a glimpse of 1950s America in this coming-of-age tale about summer, family, and growing up Italian.
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
by Mildred D. Taylor
Set in the 1930s South, this Newbery Award winner and its sequels follow an African-American girl and her family as they fight for the land that is rightfully theirs.
The Shakespeare Stealer
by Gary Blackwood
The first in a great series with boy appeal, this book takes readers back to the wacky &emdash; and often dangerous &emdash; world of theatre in Elizabethan England.
A Single Shard
by Linda Sue Park
This moving novel follows a young boy's transformation from apprentice to artist in 12-century Korea.
So Far from Home
by Barry Denenberg
Dear America series
This riveting diary takes a sharp look at the deteriorating conditions at the Lowell mills experienced by a 13-year-old immigrant girl in 1847.
