Historical Fiction books are written often with fictional characters and plots, but they frequently contain information that is historical fact. Students can often learn or supplement their history knowledge through the information contained in these books. Frequently, the authors spend time researching the historical information that they plan to build into these books.
One Crazy Summer
By: Rita Williams-Garcia
Reviewer: Christopher Schiemann
Grade Level: 5-8
Reading Level: 5.0
As you can see by the cover, One Crazy Summer was nominated and awarded several ALA accolades. This book takes readers back to 1968 Oakland, right in the heart of the social turmoil that included race relations. Three sisters are sent from their home with their grandmother, Big Ma, in Brooklyn to visit their mother Cecile for the summer. Their mother is right in the heart of the social movement, led by the Black Panthers, and encourages their involvement by sending them to the Black Panthers' summer camp. While visiting for the summer, they immediately feel like a burden to the same mother who abandoned them earlier in their lives. This book examines the familiar relationships of this family and the girls as they stick together to "survive" the summer of 1968.
An Interview with Rita Williams-Garcia about One Crazy Summer
Forge
By: Laurie Halse Anderson
Grade Level: 5-8
Reading Level: 5.7
From the Publisher: In this compelling sequel to Chains, a National Book Award Finalist and winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction, acclaimed author Laurie Halse Anderson shifts perspective from Isabel to Curzon and brings to the page the tale of what it takes for runaway slaves to forge their own paths in a world of obstaclesand in the midst of the American Revolution. The Patriot Army was shaped and strengthened by the desperate circumstances of the Valley Forge winter. This is where Curzon the boy becomes Curzon the young man. In addition to the hardships of soldiering, he lives with the fear of discovery, for he is an escaped slave passing for free. And then there is Isabel, who is also at Valley Forgeagainst her will. She and Curzon have to sort out the tangled threads of their friendship while figuring out what stands between the two of them and true freedom.
Woods Runner
By: Gary Paulsen
Grade Level: 5-8
Reading Level: 5.1
From the Publisher: Samuel, 13, spends his days in the forest, hunting for food for his family. He has grown up on the frontier of a British colony, America. Far from any town, or news of the war against the King that American patriots have begun near Boston. But the war comes to them. British soldiers and Iroquois attack. Samuel's parents are taken away, prisoners. Samuel follows, hiding, moving silently, determined to find a way to rescue them. Each day he confronts the enemy, and the tragedy and horror of this war. But he also discovers allies, men and women working secretly for the patriot cause. And he learns that he must go deep into enemy territory to find his parents: all the way to the British headquarters, New York City. From the Hardcover edition.
Breaking Stalin's Nose
By: Eugene Velchin
Grade Level: 5-8
Reading Level: 5.7
From the Publisher: One of Horn Book's Best Fiction Books of 2011 Sasha Zaichik has known the laws of the Soviet Young Pioneers since the age of six: The Young Pioneer is devoted to Comrade Stalin, the Communist Party, and Communism. A Young Pioneer is a reliable comrade and always acts according to conscience. A Young Pioneer has a right to criticize shortcomings.But now that it is finally time to join the Young Pioneers, the day Sasha has awaited for so long, everything seems to go awry. He breaks a classmate's glasses with a snowball. He accidentally damages a bust of Stalin in the school hallway. And worst of all, his father, the best Communist he knows, was arrested just last night. This moving story of a ten-year-old boy's world shattering is masterful in its simplicity, powerful in its message, and heartbreaking in its plausibility.