Historical Fiction Library

Richard Peck is a master of stories about people in transition, but perhaps never before has he told a tale of such dramatic change as this one, set during the first year of the Civil War. The whole country is changing in 1861, even the folks from a muddy little Illinois settlement on the banks of the Mississippi. Here, 15-year-old Tilly Pruitt frets over the fact that her brother is dreaming of being a soldier and that her sister is prone to supernatural visions.

Still Star-Crossed follows the aftermath of the tragic deaths of Romeo and Juliet, as mysterious figures in Verona are determined to reignite the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets.

Kevin is trying to remember what he's supposed to do if there's an intruder in the house: stay calm, don't look scared, call 911. At the same time, he's doing his best to figure out how the heck some guy with a bow and arrow got into the room. The archer's explanation - "I lost my balance, fell off the tiger, and landed here" - just adds to Kevin's bewilderment.

Twelve-year-old Sumiko feels her life has been made up of two parts: before Pearl Harbor and after it. The good part and the bad part. Raised on a flower farm in California, Sumiko is used to being the only Japanese girl in her class. Even when the other kids tease her, she always has had her flowers and family to go home to. That all changes after the horrific events of Pearl Harbor.

Washed up on a foreign shore, Tristan is lucky to be alive. As before, it seems to be a miracle - the Holy Grail the young Templar squire is protecting has saved his life yet again. But now he is lost in a strange land, and he doesn’t know if his friends, the fiery archer Robard Hode and the Saracen assassin maid Maryam, still survive. Tristan’s knack for getting into trouble is alive and well, though, and he quickly finds himself drawn into a conflict between a heretical band of Cathars and the oppressive King of France.

Cracker is one of the U.S. Army's most valuable weapons: a German shepherd trained to sniff out bombs, traps, and the enemy. Rick is headed to Vietnam to prove to everyone who didn't think he was cut out for war that they were wrong. When Cracker is paired with Rick, she isn't so sure about this new owner. He's going to have to prove himself to her before she's going to prove herself to him. They need to be friends before they can be a team, and they have to be a team if they want to get home alive.

Jessie Bollier often played his fife to earn a few pennies down by the New Orleans docks. One afternoon a sailor asked him to pipe a tune, and that evening Jessie was kidnapped and dumped aboard The Moonlight, a slave ship, where a hateful duty awaited him. He was to play music so the slaves could "dance" to keep their muscles strong, their bodies profitable. Jessie was sickened by the thought of taking part in the business of trading rum and tobacco for blacks and then selling the ones who survived the frightful sea voyage from Africa.

It is the dawn of the 18th century, when girls stay home and sew while men sail the high seas finding adventure, danger, and gold. But two unusually adventurous girls (a rich merchant's daughter, Nancy Kington, and her former plantation slave, Minerva Sharpe) take to the high seas from Jamaica on a ship the crew renames Deliverance.

There's a new afterschool club at Ironville Middle School. Ms. Peterson is starting a video game club where the students will playing The Good War, a new game based on World War II. They are divided into two teams: Axis and Allies, and they will be simulating a war they know nothing about yet. Only one team will win. But what starts out as friendly competition takes an unexpected turn for the worse when an one player takes the game too far.

A new breed of villain has risen, possessed of extraordinary intellect and violence. Only the brilliant mind and courage of Sexton Blake, scourge of the criminal world, can stop them, in these three classic stories, collected together in one volume for the first time. From the streets of London to the catacombs of Paris, join Blake as he pits his wits against bank robbers, impostors and kidnappers, duels with swords and pursues his foes by any means necessary.

Eighteen-year-old Angélique dreams of designing extravagant gowns like the ladies in the bourgeoise wear to balls and soirées. Because she’s working-class, Angélique knows that her life will, instead, be spent dyeing silk for a living. That is, until her parents and younger sibling are killed in the sweatshop where they’ve toiled. Now orphaned, and with another sister to protect, Angélique vows vengeance against the factory owner growing richer by treating his employees as disposable.

Fifteen-year-old Pip and seventeen-year-old Sissy aren't just sisters, they're best friends. Every year, they wait eagerly for the traveling carnival to put its stakes down in their tiny Florida town. It's the only time when the girls can abandon their endless chores on the family's orange grove and give in to pure joy. And the only time Pip and Sissy can forget their many troubles . . . living on the brink of poverty, Mama's despair, and Daddy's perpetual anger. With the arrival of the carnival, the girls’ slow, small lives suddenly feels bigger and brighter.

It’s 1932: Scottish adventuress and plant-hunter (and surviving twin) Emily Blackwood, now living in Australia, accepts a commission from Heinrich Vogel, a former dealer of exotic animals in Manhattan. Vogel now lives with his macabre collection of taxidermy in a remote Scottish castle. Emily is tasked with finding a long-lost treasure that Heinrich believes has been hidden within the castle walls. But instead, she discovers the pages of a diary written by Hester Vogel, who died after falling from the Brooklyn Bridge on the eve of its opening in 1883.

Kaya knows in her heart that her beautiful Appaloosa mare, Steps High, is the fastest horse in the herd. But when boasting leads to a daring bareback race, Kaya pushes Steps High too hard. She puts herself and the horse in danger and earns a terrible nickname for being untrustworthy. Kaya vows to be a girl her horse and her people can trust. When enemy raiders storm Kaya’s village, she tries to save Steps High but gets taken captive herself, along with her sister. All Kaya can think of is escape, but how?

Penguin Classics presents Jane Austen’s Emma, adapted for audio and now available as a digital download as part of the Penguin English Library series. Read by the actress Fiona Shaw. Beautiful, clever, rich - and single - Emma Woodhouse is perfectly content with her life and sees no need for either love or marriage. Nothing, however, delights her more than interfering in the romantic lives of others....

Penguin Classics presents Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, adapted for audio and available as a digital download as part of the Penguin English Library series. Read by Joanna David. “No sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she had hardly a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes ...”

Twelve-year-old Stick Lawson lives on Hatteras Island, North Carolina, where life moves steady as the tides, and mysteries abound as long as you look really hard for them. Stick and her friends Rain and Neb are good at looking hard. They call themselves the Dime Novel Kids. And the only thing Stick wants more than a paying case for them to solve is the respect that comes with it.

In 1924, 18-year-old college students Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb made a decision: they would commit the perfect crime by kidnapping and murdering a child they both knew. But they made one crucial error: As they were disposing of the body of young Bobby Franks, whom they had bludgeoned to death, Nathan's eyeglasses fell from his jacket pocket. Multi-award-winning author Candace Fleming depicts every twist and turn of this harrowing case.

París, 1939. La joven Odile Souchet lo tiene todo: un atractivo novio oficial de policía y un trabajo de ensueño en la Biblioteca Americana de París. Pero cuando estalla la guerra y los nazis marchan sobre París, Odile se expone a perder todo lo que le importa, incluida su querida biblioteca.

Things have changed for Samantha. She leaves quiet Mount Bedford for the bustle of New York City and the company of Aunt Cornelia's ten-year-old twin sisters. Agnes and Agatha are good at getting into mischief—and at bringing Samantha with them. When the three girls visit Grandmary's summer home, an adventure leads to danger on Goose Lake—the same lake where Samantha's parents drowned! Then word comes that Nellie and her sisters are in serious trouble. It's up to Samantha to save her friends before it's too late.