Historical Fiction Library

Bobby Lassiter has some important secrets - but it’s not as if anyone’s paying attention. It’s the middle of the Depression, and while Bobby’s mother and older sister knit all day to make money, Bobby explores the California desert around their home. That’s how Bobby finds Boots. He’s under their one half-dead tree, half dead himself. Right away he’s a secret, too - a secret to be fed and clothed and taken care of, and even more of a secret because of what he can do. Sometimes Boots is a man. Sometimes he’s (really, truly) a horse.

In his first book for young adults, best-selling author Walter Mosley deftly weaves historical and speculative fiction into a powerful narrative about the nature of freedom.

School is out in the summer of 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee. For Frances Robinson, a 15-year-old daydreamer with a crush on her teacher, John T. Scopes, summer vacation promises tennis and Coca-Colas from her father's drug store. But when Frances' father, the school board chairman, has Scopes arrested for teaching evolution, the sleepiest place on earth becomes a hotbed for famous thinkers, including H.L. Mencken, Clarence Darrow, and William Jennings Bryan.

Murder. One of the Allerdon sisters has been charged with a pre-meditated killing and taken to jail. It doesn't seem possible - but it's happening. What was supposed to be a typical summer is anything but for this seemingly ordinary family. Shortly after they arrive at their cozy family cottage on the river, Lander meets and is smitten with a handsome young man, and they begin to date. Miranda has a bad feeling about her sister's new boyfriend. And when the family must deal with an unimaginable nightmare, Miranda can't help feeling that the boyfriend has something to do with it.

When a petty thief falls though a glass roof in his attempt to escape from the police, what should have been the death of him marks the beginning of a while new life. After his broken body is reconstructed by an ambitious young doctor, he is released from prison, and, with the help of Victorian London's extensive sewer system, he becomes the most elusive burglar in the city.

Eleven-year-old twins Oliver and Celia Navel could care less about adventure and they really do not like excitement. They’d rather be watching television. Unfortunately for them, their thrill-seeking parents have dragged them from continent to continent their entire lives. But when their mother goes missing and their father makes a bet with the devious explorer Sir Edmund, the twins are forced into action. They head to Tibet where they fall out of airplanes, battle Yetis, poison witches, and encounter one very large yak.

Long before they became famous writers, Truman Capote (In Cold Blood) and Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird) were childhood friends in Monroeville, Alabama. This fictionalized account of their time together opens at the beginning of the Great Depression, when Tru is seven and Nelle is six. They love playing pirates, but they like playing Sherlock and Watson-style detectives even more. It’s their pursuit of a case of drugstore theft that lands the daring duo in real trouble. Humor and heartache intermingle in this lively look at two budding writers in the 1930s South.

After the death of 17-year-old Sebastian Darke's father, the half-human, half-elf teen sets off to offer his services as a jester to King Septimus of Keladon. On the way, he (along with his father's cynical Buffalope Max and fierce fighter Captain Cornelius Drummel) rescues the fair princess Kerin. If only Sebastian knew the kidnapping was engineered by the evil King Septimus!

Sofarende is at war. For 12-year-old Mathilde, it means food shortages, feuding neighbors, and bombings. Even so, as long as she and her best friend, Megs, are together, they'll be all right. But the army is recruiting children, and paying families well for their service. If Megs takes the test, Mathilde knows she will pass. Megs hopes the army is the way to save her family. Mathilde fears it might separate them forever.

In this unforgettable multicultural coming-of-age narrative - based on the author's childhood in the 1960s - a young Cuban-Jewish immigrant girl is adjusting to her new life in New York City when her American dream is suddenly derailed. Ruthie's plight will intrigue listeners, and her powerful story of strength and resilience, full of color, light, and poignancy, will stay with them for a long time.

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.

Eduardo F. Calcines was a child of Fidel Castros Cuba; he was just three years old when Castro came to power in January 1959. After that, everything changed for his family and his country. When he was 10, his family applied for an exit visa to emigrate to America and he was ridiculed by his schoolmates and even his teachers for being a traitor to his country. But even worse, his father was sent to an agricultural reform camp to do hard labor as punishment for daring to want to leave Cuba.

Tao is an outcast. Unlike the great hunters of his clan, Tao does not want to kill the wild bears or woolly mammoths of the hunt. Instead he wants only to paint them. But only Chosen Ones can be cave painters. What's more, Volt, the clan leader, violently despises Tao. And when the other clan members discover Tao's secret talent, they cast him out into the wilderness alone. There, he befriends a wild wolf dog named Ram, and the mysterious Graybeard, who teaches him the true secret of the hunt.

A war took Mathilde away from her family when she was chosen to serve her country, Sofarende, with other children working on a secret military project. But now the other children - including her best friend, Megs - have fled to safety, and Mathilde is all alone, determined to complete her mission. In this powerful and deeply moving sequel to the acclaimed Beautiful Blue World, Mathilde must make her way through a new stage of the war.

When 12-year-old Gertie Milk washes up on the island of Skuldark, she finds that all of her memories are gone. Home to helpful Slug Lamps, delicious moonberries, and a ferocious Guard Worm, the island is full of oddities, including a cozy cottage containing artifacts from every corner of history. It is there that Gertie discovers she has been chosen as the next Keeper of Lost Things, tasked with the mission of returning objects to history's most important figures right when they need them most.

Elisabetta longs for romance, though she thinks she's too plain. Then, on a visit to Florence, she catches the eye of the great Leonardo da Vinci and falls for a boy, Giuliano de Medici. It's a dangerous time to be involved with a Medici. As tragedy and chaos threaten their happiness, Elisabetta faces the bittersweet truth of love.

Orphaned Matilda is not at all pleased when she arrives at Blood and Bone Alley to become an assistant to Red Peg the Bonesetter. She is a religious, well-educated girl who can't picture herself doing dirty chores or helping sickly patients. Each day is very different from her former quiet life. Matilda's not used to being around so many people who are coming and going, laughing and eating. Not one of them seems interested in prayer or study.

Far and near. Lost and found. Four girls. Four generations. Georgia cannot figure out what's going on in her family. Her mother, Francie, is extremely overprotective. Her grandmother, Dana, and her great-grandmother, Abby, don't speak to each other. And Georgia's great-great-grandmother also had some secrets that nobody else knows about. Georgia knows this because she's found her great-great grandmother's diary hidden in a wall in the family's house in Maine.

In 17th century England, a terrible accident forces orphaned Philip Marsham to flee London in fear for his life. Bred to the sea, he signs on with the Rose of Devon, a dark frigate bound for the quiet shores of Newfoundland.Philip's bold spirit and knowledge of the sea soon win him his captain's regard. But when the Rose of Devon is seized in mid-ocean by a devious group of men plucked from a floating wreck, Phlip is forced to accompany these "gentlemen of fortune" on their murderous expeditions. Like it or not, Philip Marsham is now a pirate - with only the hangman awaiting his return to England.With its bloody battles, brutal buccaneers, and bold, spirited hero, this rousing tale will enthrall all listeners in search of seafaring adventure.

Fourteen-year-old Rhiannon lives high on the bluff of Clodaghcombe with her healer Mom and grandmother. She helps them tend to the sick and wounded from the town below - a town swirling with controversy ever since the arrival of the Norman gentry and the tragic shipwreck that killed the king’s only son and heir to the throne. Rhiannon finds herself transfixed imagining the horrid disaster that took so many youths near her own age. Then, tragedy strikes closer to home with the discovery of a stranger’s body near their bluff and accusations of murder leveled at one of their residents.