Historical Fiction Library

Before my family lived in this house, a different family did, and before them, another family, and another before them. And before that, the family lived here, not in a house, but a wigwam. Who lived where you are before you got there? This Land teaches listeners that American land, from our backyards to our schools to Disney World, are the traditional homelands of many Indigenous nations. This Land will spark curiosity and encourage readers to explore the history of the places they live and the people who have lived there throughout time and today.

Anxious to be given a name as strong and brave as that of his father, a proud Lakota Sioux grows into manhood, acting with careful deliberation, determination, and bravery, which eventually earned him his proud new name: Sitting Bull.

Georgia Gilmore was cooking when she heard the news Mrs. Rosa Parks had been arrested - pulled off a city bus and thrown in jail all because she wouldn't let a White man take her seat. To protest, the radio urged everyone to stay off city buses for one day: December 5, 1955. Throughout the boycott - at Holt Street Baptist Church meetings led by a young minister named Martin Luther King Jr. - and throughout the struggle for justice, Georgia served up her mouth-watering fried chicken, her spicy collard greens, and her sweet potato pie.

At the mountain's base sits a cabin under an old hickory tree. And in that cabin lives a family - loving, weaving, cooking, and singing. The strength in their song sustains them through trials on the ground and in the sky, as they wait for their loved one, a pilot, to return from war. With an author's note that pays homage to the true history of Native American US service members like WWII pilot Ola Mildred "Millie" Rexroat, this is a story that reveals the roots that ground us, the dreams that help us soar, and the people and traditions that hold us up.

A stingy fisherman always makes his three young helpers do all his work. One day, he scolds the “lazy boys” for forgetting to provide lunch. “Don’t worry,” they say. “We can make stone soup.” The boys dig a hole and fill it with water and “flavored” stones. They trick the fisherman into making bowls and chopsticks and fetching salt and sesame oil. While he’s busy, they stir in bird eggs, add wild vegetables, and slip fish into the soup. By the time the old man returns, they have a feast fit for a king.

How did Joe, Fred, and Sam end up in King Arthur's court? It all started with The Book, a present from Joe's magician uncle. One minute they were looking at pictures of knights in The Book - and the next minute they are knights, battling fire-breathing dragons and gross-smelling giants! Can the Time Warp Trio escape death and destruction - and make it back to the twentieth century in time for lunch?

America meant "freedom" to the immigrants of the early 1900s - but a freedom very different from what they expected. Cities were crowded and jobs were scare. Children had to work selling newspapers, delivering goods, and laboring sweatshops. In this touching book, Newberry Medalist Russell Freedman offers a rare glimpse of what it meant to be a young newcomer to America.

Marilla Cuthbert and her brother Matthew want to adopt an orphan, to help on the farm at Green Gables. They ask for a boy, but they get Anne, who has red hair and freckles, and who talks and talks and talks.They didn’t want a girl, but how can they send a child back, like an unwanted parcel? So Anne stays, and begins a new life in the sleepy, quiet village of Avonlea in Canada.

All he wanted to do was to marry the woman he loved. But his country said ’No!’ He was Edward VIII, King of Great Britain, King of India, King of Australia, and king of 39 other countries. And he loved the wrong woman. She was beautiful and she loved him - but she was already married to another man. It was a love story that shook the world. The king had to choose: to be king, or to have love... and leave his country, never to return.

Adapted from the novel by L. Frank Baum.... Dorothy lives in Kansas, but one day a cyclone blows her and her house to a strange country called Oz. There, Dorothy makes friends with the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion. But she wants to go home to Kansas. Only one person can help her, and that is the country’s famous Wizard of Oz. So Dorothy and her friends follow the yellow brick road to the Emerald City to find the Wizard.