Historical Fiction Library

Someone is planning to kill George Washington, and young Phoebe Fraunces is trying to save his life. Phoebe gets a job as George Washington's housekeeper, but her real job is to work as a spy. She listens and watches very carefully, and she meets her father every day to tell him what she has learned. One day Phoebe's father tells her that Washington is planning to leave town in a few days, and the person plotting against him will act before then. Phoebe is very frightened, but she is determined to figure out who is after Washington before it's too late. . . .

Barrio Logan, one of San Diego’s oldest Chicane neighborhoods, once brimmed with families and stretched all the way to the glorious San Diego Bay. But in the decades after WWII, the community lost their beach and bayfront to factories, junkyards, and an interstate that divided the neighborhood and forced around 5,000 people out of their homes. Then on April 22, 1970, residents discovered that the construction crew they believed was building a park—one the city had promised them years ago—was actually breaking ground for a police station.

The vicious attack on their wagon train killed almost everyone - except David and his younger sister, whom he calls Queen of Sheba. The two are stranded on the deserted trail and have to live by their wits and whatever supplies they can scavenge. And although David is seriously hurt, he knows that frail Queen of Sheba is counting on him. He can only hope that their parents are somewhere up ahead - if he can find them.

When Eleanor Roosevelt time travels to Nolan and Olive's house in modern-day Illinois, the kids don't know who she is at first. After all, she's old and wearing a hairnet. But the First Lady of the United States - some 80 years ago, that is - isn't a mystery for long when she starts spouting things like, "You must do the things you think you cannot do." Fresh off a visit from Ben Franklin, Nolan and Olive know what they're in for with this latest guest: an adventure.

The Great Death arrived with the man from downriver, the one who came with the light-colored strangers and had little red spots covering his body. Thirteen-year-old Millie and her younger sister, Maura, are fascinated by the guests, but soon sickness takes over their village. As they watch the people they know and love die, the sisters remain unaffected and begin to realize that they will have to find a new home.

When the filly is eventually given to a titled baron in the castle town of Athenry, Lara, determined to stay with the horse no matter what, goes along. Together, she and her beloved horse face seemingly insurmountable challenges, but all along Lara keeps two things in mind. One day, she will manage to flee, and will set off in search of the family that she was taken from. And she will not leave without her silver mare.

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.

Rachel, Cassie, and Joey live in the city with their Pop, until Pop's search for work lands the family on a run down farm. Dreamy Rachel loves to read, and doesn't know much about the country. Times are hard there, too - the school and library are closed. When Pop gets work near Canada, he has to leave the children on the farm alone. For two months! But Rachel's the oldest, and she'll make sure they're all right. Somehow.

Anna's father disappeared months ago. He had to flee the country because the cruel new Communist government wanted to arrest him. The Communists may have arrived like heroes at the end of World War II, saving Czechoslovakia from the Nazis - but since then, things have changed. Now Anna's whole family feels threatened and doesn't know whom to trust, so she and her mother and sister set out to escape, hoping to reunite with Papa.

Something BIG is going on in the woods near DSA! Wiglaf and his friends are on a rescue mission to save Worm, the dragon they’ve raised since he hatched. They thought that a gang of knights-in-training was the problem, but it turns out that it’s a little girl GIANT! The DSA kids can’t let Worm become her house pet. But how can they free him?

Rockhopper penguin Freya has always craved - and feared - adventure. When she hears about Captain Salomon August Andrée's hot-air balloon expedition to the North Pole, Freya packs her copy of Hints to Lady Travellers and hops on board. Only moments after leaving land, Freya discovers a fellow stowaway! Meet Zoose, the scrappy, uncouth mouse whose endless wisecracks and despicable manners make him a less-than-ideal travel companion. When the hot-air balloon is forced to land in the Arctic, these polar opposites must learn how to get along. Their very survival depends on it.

Nine-year-old Lara is the daughter of the leader of her cattle-raising clan. While she spends her days tending to the cattle, her heart lies with a spindly-legged filly. A rival clan captures them both. When the filly is eventually given to a titled baron in the castle town of Athenry, Lara, determined to stay with the horse no matter what, goes along. Together, she and her beloved horse face seemingly insurmountable challenges, but all along Lara keeps two things in mind. One day, she will manage to flee, and will set off in search of the family that she was taken from. And she will not leave without her silver mare.

Brooklyn, 1875: Bird Mallon lives on Water Street where you can see the huge towers of the bridge to Manhattan being built. Bird wants nothing more in life than to be brave enough to be a healer, like her mother, Nory, to help her sister Annie find love, and to convince her brother, Hughie, to stop fighting for money with his street gang. And of course, she wishes that a girl would move into the empty apartment upstairs so that she can have a new friend close by.

In the jungle of Southern India the Seeonee Wolf-Pack has a new cub. He is not a wolf - he is Mowgli, a human child, but he knows nothing of the world of men. He lives and hunts with his brothers the wolves. Baloo the bear and Bagheera the panther are his friends and teachers. And Shere Khan, the man-eating tiger, is his enemy.Kipling’s famous story of Mowgli’s adventures in the jungle has been loved by young and old for more than a hundred years.

Sam's bright idea to look for the inventor of the Book takes the guys to 15th-century Italy to meet up with Leonardo da Vinci. But it's going to take at least three more bright ideas, two magic tricks, and one great invention to get them out of trouble and safely back home. If not, it could be a lifetime of Italian army toilet-cleaning detail for Joe, Sam, and Fred.

Tom Sawyer does not like school. He does not like work, and he never wants to get out of bed in the morning. But he likes swimming and fishing, and having adventures with his friends. And he has a lot of adventures. One night, he and his friend Huck Finn go to the graveyard to look for ghosts.They don’t see any ghosts that night. They see something worse than a ghost – much, much worse.

Little Mary Lennox is a bad-tempered, disagreeable child. When her parents die in India, she is sent back to England to live with her uncle in a big, lonely, old house. There is nothing to do all day except walk in the gardens – and watch the robin flying over the high walls of the secret garden . . . which has been locked for ten years. And no one has the key. An Oxford Bookworms Library reader for learners of English, adapted from the Frances Hodgson Burnett original by Clare West.

Born into the household of a wealthy slave owner in Cuba in 1797, Juan Francisco Manzano spent his early years by the side of a woman who made him call her Mama, even though he had a mama of his own. Denied an education, young Juan still showed an exceptional talent for poetry. His verses reflect the beauty of his world, but they also expose its hideous cruelty.

Charlie and Ralph’s mom has waited a long time to vote because countless obstacles have been put in Black people’s way to stop them from having a say in elections—obstacles that it took a lot of hard work to tear down. But now, in 1969, Madear is going to vote for the very first time, and the boys are coming along on this exciting day. A day that puts a new bounce in their mom’s step, and enables them all to begin to dream of a better future.

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.