Historical Fiction Library

Spanning over 500 years, Pura Belpré Award winner Ruth Behar's epic novel tells the stories of four girls from different generations of a Jewish family, many of them forced to leave their country and start a new life.

Jack and Annie travel back in time to a desert in the Middle East at the behest of Merlin, who has given them a rhyme to help on their mission. There they meet a Bedouin tribe and learn about the way that they live. From camel rides and oases to ancient writings and dangerous sandstorms, here's another Magic Tree House filled with all the mystery, history, magic, and old-fashioned adventure that kids love.

Twelve-year-old Ann Maria Weems works from sunup to sundown, wraps rags around her feet in the winter, and must do whatever her master or mistress orders—but she has something that many plantation slaves don't have. She has her wonderful family around her. To Ann, her teasing brothers, her older sister, and her protective and loving parents are everything. And then one day, they are gone. Separated from her family by her master and shipped off as a housemaid, Ann learns something about independence and about love before the opportunity for escape arrives.

Jack and Annie are off on another Merlin Mission. This time, Merlin has sent them to rescue a beautiful, magical creature, the unicorn. But when they land in New York City during the Depression of the 1930s, Jack and Annie are confused. Where will they find a unicorn in a big city? And what about the blizzard that's burying New York in snow? Can Jack and Annie make their way through the windy streets, find the unicorn, and maybe even bring some hope to the people of the great city?

Merlin the Magician will not eat or sleep or speak to anyone in Camelot. What can be done? The enchantress Morgan knows who to ask for help: young Jack and Annie of Frog Creek, Pennsylvania! The brother-and-sister team quickly head off in the magic tree house on another magical and historical adventure.

British airman Dym Ingleford is convinced that the young German prisoner, Max Eckermann, is his brother Anthony, who was kidnapped years before. Raised in the Nazi ideology, Tony has by chance tumbled into British hands. Dym has brought him back, at least temporarily, to the family he neither remembers nor will acknowledge as his own.

At Academy Absconditi, classes include everything from knife-throwing and poisons to the art of deception. The other students are all children of the world's most elite strategists, in training to become assassins, spies, and master manipulators. November Adley doesn't know why she's been sent to this place, but she'll quickly discover that allies are few in a school where competition is everything. When another student is murdered, all eyes turn to November, who must figure out exactly how she fits in before she is found guilty of the crime...or becomes the killer's next victim.

The number one best-selling Magic Tree House series is ready to whisk you away through time with Jack and Annie! This time, meet famous explorer Leif Erikson and help save a narwhal! When the magic tree house whisks Jack and Annie to Greenland, they're not sure what time they've landed in, but they immediately know what their mission is: save a narwhal! Then, they meet a young hunter named Leif Erikson, and they ask for his help. But Leif has other ideas.... Track the facts with Jack and Annie in the nonfiction companion to this audiobook: Narwhals and Other Whales.

In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed across the ocean and discovered America. Right? WRONG! Columbus never actually set foot in what is now the United States. His voyages took him to islands in the Caribbean and along the coast of South America. The truth is, when Columbus first arrived, Indigenous peoples, including the Taino, had been living there for thousands of years, raising their families, running their societies, and trading with their neighbors. He didn’t “discover” the lands at all! And his name? Not even really Christopher Columbus!

Time-traveling brother-and-sister team Jack and Annie have to find a certain kind of food. The magic tree house whisks them off to a village in the mountains of Southeast China, close to a world-famous panda reserve. Will it be their easiest adventure yet? Not a chance! Jack and Annie don't know it, but they’ve arrived on the day of a historic earthquake!

When the magic tree house whisks Jack and Annie to a mountainside, they are surprised to find farmers nearby. Then they learn that the farmer's baby llama has been stolen, and Jack and Annie vow to bring the little animal back to its owners. But the journey is treacherous - they must climb to the peak of Machu Picchu and climb back down in order to complete this mission. Jack and Annie have been on many dangerous travels, but can they survive this one?

When Julie finds out that her new school has a basketball team, life starts looking up—until the coach tells her girls aren’t allowed to play. Julie decides to fight for a place on the team, and almost loses her best friend in the process. Meanwhile, a school project forces her to face some hard truths about her family—and herself. Growing up in San Francisco in the 1970s, Julie begins to realize that sometimes the best way to cope with change is to make a few changes of her own.

1836, Wisconsin. Catalina lives with her pa and brother in a ramshackle cabin on the edge of the wilderness. Harsh winters have brought the family to the brink of starvation, and Catalina has replaced her poet's soul with an unyielding determination to keep Pa and her brother alive. When a sudden illness claims Pa, a strange man appears—a man covered in bark, leaves growing from his head, and sap dripping from his eyes.

On a frosty morning sometime in the 14th century, in a village somewhere in England, a girl known only as Brat was sleeping in a dung heap. "You, girl. Are you alive or dead?" When she opened her eyes, she saw an important-looking woman with a sharp glance and a sharp nose and a wimple starched into sharp pleats. This woman was Jane the midwife, and she needed a helper....

When Louisiana Elefante's granny wakes her up in the middle of the night to tell her that the day of reckoning has arrived and they have to leave home immediately, Louisiana isn't overly worried. But this time, things are different. This time, Granny intends for them never to return. Separated from her best friends, Raymie and Beverly, Louisiana struggles to oppose the winds of fate (and Granny) and find a way home. But as Louisiana's life becomes entwined with the lives of the people of a small Georgia town she starts to worry that she is destined only for good-byes.

In Lions at Lunchtime, the Magic Tree House whisks Jack and Annie to the vast plains of Africa. Before Jack can find out where the lions are, Annie starts to help hundreds of wildebeasts cross a rushing river. Next, they follow a honey of a bird and meet an awesome Masai warrior. Jack hopes any lions will just stay away. Jack is about to be very disappointed.

Willa and her clan are the last of the Faeran, an ancient race of forest people who have lived in the Great Smoky Mountains for as long as the trees have grown there. But as crews of newly arrived humans start cutting down great swaths of the forest she loves, Willa is helpless to stop them. How can she fight the destroyers of the forest and their powerful machines?

Lada Dracul has no allies. No throne. All she has is what she's always had: herself. After failing to secure the Wallachian throne, Lada is out to punish anyone who dares to cross her blood-strewn path. Filled with a white-hot rage, she storms the countryside with her men, accompanied by her childhood friend Bogdan, terrorizing the land. But brute force isn't getting Lada what she wants. And thinking of Mehmed brings little comfort to her thorny heart.

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.

This is the story of Anita de la Torre, a 12-year-old girl living in the Dominican Republic in 1960. Most of her relatives have immigrated to the United States, her Tio Toni has disappeared, Papi has been getting mysterious phone calls about butterflies, and someone named Mr. Smith and the secret police have started terrorizing her family. While Anita deals with this frightening series of events, she also struggles with her adolescence and her own personal fight to be free.