Historical Literature For Teens

The year is 1763. Gideon Seymour, cutpurse and gentleman, hides in dense underbrush from the villainous Tar Man. Suddenly the sky peels away like fabric and from the gaping hole fall two curious-looking children. Peter Schock and Kate Dyer have fallen straight from the 21st century, thanks to an experiment Kate's father was running with an antigravity machine.

Fourteen-year-old Rachel Marsh is nanny to John and Abigail Adams' children and witnesses firsthand how tension builds in the feisty New England town in the two years before it erupts in the Boston Massacre. Friends become foes and families divide as British troops arrive in 1768 to force the outspoken Bostonians to toe the line and obey the British government.

In 1767, 11-year-old Nicholas Young stowed away on Captain James Cook's "Endeavour". Cook's three-year mission was secret: he was charged by the British Navy to search for a lost continent, believed to be located between the southern tip of South America and New Zealand. Young's journal charts the voyage and with every port of call a new adventure awaits. This is the story of a great voyage of discovery seen through the eyes of a boy who was actually there.

Minamoto Yoshitsune should not have been a samurai. But his story is legend in this real-life saga. This epic warrior tale may sound like a novel, but this is the true story of the greatest samurai in Japanese history. When Yoshitsune was just a baby, his father went to war with a rival samurai family - and lost. His father was killed, his mother captured, and his surviving half-brother banished. Yoshitsune was sent away to live in a monastery. Skinny, small, and unskilled in the warrior arts, he nevertheless escaped and learned the ways of the samurai.

It’s 1942, and as the war rages in Europe, Maisie McCall is in the Scottish Highlands swinging an ax for the Women’s Timber Corps. Maisie relishes her newfound independence working alongside other lumberjacks - including the mysterious John Lindsay. As Maisie and John work side by side felling trees, Maisie can’t help but feel that their friendship has the spark of something more to it. And yet every time she gets close to him, John pulls away. It’s not until Maisie rescues John from a terrible logging accident that he begins to open up to her about the truth of his past.

Before she befriended a frightened young boy in the palace of Kingfountain, Ankarette Tryneowy grew up during the shattering civil war that raged between members of the Argentine family. This is the story of how the only daughter of a lawyer and a midwife became the famed Queen's Poisoner.

Long ago and far away...There was a castle. But not just any castle. This was a castle that glittered and sparkled and rose majestically above the banks of the winding Winono River: the Castle Corona.

Susanna desperately wants to join the circle of girls who meet every week at the parsonage. What she doesn’t realize is that the leader of the group, the malicious Ann Putnam, is about to set off a torrent of false accusations leading to the imprisonment and execution of countless innocent people. When Susanna puts the pieces together, she faces a painful choice.

When a mysterious Scotsman suddenly appears in the middle of the road, Klara thinks the biggest problem is whether she hit him with her car. But, as impossible as it sounds, Callum has stepped out of another time, and it’s just the beginning of a deadly adventure. Klara will soon learn that she is the last Pillar of Time—an anchor point in the timeline of the world and a hiding place for a rogue goddess’s magic.

The second book in a new fantasy trilogy from New York Times best-selling author Kiersten White, exploring the nature of self, the inevitable cost of progress, and, of course, magic and romance and betrayal so epic Queen Guinevere remains the most famous queen who never lived.

After a life of hurt and disappointment, Raya, the spiky-haired, Doc Marten-wearing 14-year-old decides it’s time to strike out on her own. She leaves the boring English village and what she's determined will be her last foster placement for the excitement of London. But it turns out she’s a witch, with the annoying habit of time-traveling - by accident. And a sarcastic witch’s cat Oscar tags along for the ride. Why would she fling herself into the midst of the Essex Witch Trials in 1645 England?

Samuel, 13, spends his days in the forest, hunting for food for his family. He has grown up on the frontier of a British colony, America. Far from any town, or news of the war against the King that American patriots have begun near Boston.

Every summer Quill and his friends are put ashore on a remote sea stac to hunt birds. But this summer, no one arrives to take them home. Surely nothing but the end of the world can explain why they’ve been abandoned - cold, starving and clinging to life, in the grip of a murderous ocean. How will they survive such a forsaken place of stone and sea?

London, 1593. Sixteen-year-old Will Hughes is busy working on Shakespeare’s stage, stuffing his corsets with straw and pretending to be someone else. Offstage, he’s playing a part, too. The son of traitors, Will is desperate to keep his identity secret—or risk being killed in the bloody queen’s imperial schemes. All he wants is to lay low until he earns enough coin to return to his family.

Ever since she was a child, Audrey wanted her life to be extraordinary. But as the daughter of a viscount born in late 14th-century England, the only thing expected of her was to marry - until an act of malice by her sister, Maris, four years ago damaged her face and her prospects. Though Maris was sent away, 20-year-old Audrey is still suffering the scars of her sister’s cruelty. When her father announces his plans to marry off his damaged daughter and bring Maris home, Audrey decides to flee in search of her true destiny.

High school is ending and Amelia cannot take one more second of people telling her to cherish every moment and be excited for the future when her future is anything but certain. Needing a change of scenery, Amelia hatches a plan to steal her best friend’s time traveling umbrella. She’s expecting the same adventure her best friend had - castles and gowns and falling in love with an enigmatic Lord.

Wren’s world shattered the day Arrik became king and broke every promise he’d made to her. Fueled by rage and betrayal, she must double-cross her husband to save the realm from war. But with every passing day, as her devilish king tries to entice Wren to stand by his side, she finds herself struggling not to fall for his charms and seduction. After years of scheming, Arrik finally held the world in his hands. But it wasn’t enough.

Hanalei of Tamarind is the cherished daughter of an old island family. But when her father steals a seadragon egg meant for an ailing princess, she is forced into a life of exile. In the years that follow, Hanalei finds solace in studying the majestic seadragons that roam the Nominomi Sea. Until, one day, an encounter with a female dragon offers her what she desires most. A chance to return home, and to right a terrible wrong.

Merlin faces the most difficult challenge of his life: to unite all the people of Fincayra against an invasion by the evil Rhita Gawr. But how can one man, in two weeks' time, gather them all - the dwarves, the canyon eagles, the walking trees, the living stones, and more - when none of them will listen? And now comes the mysterious Swordarms, who is hunting down Fincayra's children. Only if Merlin can unite the battling forces within himself, can he save the children, unify the Fincayrans, and regain the long lost wings that will enable him, and his people, to choose their true destiny.

Mary is the queen of Scotland and the jewel of the French court. Except when she’s a mouse. Yes, Mary is an Eðian (shape-shifter) in a kingdom where Verities rule. It’s a secret that could cost her a head - or a tail. Luckily, Mary has a confidant in her betrothed, Francis. But things at the gilded court take a treacherous turn after the king meets a suspicious end. Thrust onto the throne, Mary and Francis face a viper’s nest of conspiracies, traps, and treason. And if Mary’s secret is revealed, heads are bound to roll.