Historical Literature For Teens

Unexpected. Unrequited. Forbidden. Eternal. Everyone has their own love story. And in a twist of fate, four extraordinary love stories intersect over the course of a romantic Valentine’s Day in medieval England. Miles and Shelby find love where they least expect it. Roland learns a painful lesson about finding and losing love. Arriane pays the price for a love so fierce it burns. And for the first - and last - time, Daniel and Luce spend a night together like none other.

Magic is fading from Wales—choked off by King Offa’s Dyke, the enemy earthworks that spans the entire border. Even the dragons have disappeared. And now an attack is imminent. Prince Taliesin would love to watch magic die. Prince Dafydd fears it, and the throne. But when their father promises the crown to whichever son can destroy the dyke and restore magic to Wales, the brothers are forced into an uneasy rivalry.

Two o'clock was missing. In an alternate Victorian world controlled by clock towers, a damaged clock can fracture time - and a destroyed one can stop it completely. It's a truth that 17-year-old clock mechanic Danny Hart knows all too well; his father has been trapped in a Stopped town east of London for three years. Though Danny is a prodigy who can repair not only clockwork but the very fabric of time, his fixation with staging a rescue is quickly becoming a concern to his superiors.

With Nazis bombing London every night, it's time for 13-year-old Ken to escape. He suspects his stepmother is glad to see him go, but his dad says he's one of the lucky ones - one of 90 boys and girls to ship out aboard the SS City of Benares to safety in Canada. Life aboard the luxury ship is grand-nine-course meals, new friends, and a life far from the bombs, rations, and his stepmum's glare. And after five days at sea, the ship's officers announce that they're out of danger. They're wrong.

Spring, 1943. The war is turning against Germany, but Hitler isn't giving up. In a secret bunker deep in occupied France, scientists are hard at work on Hitler's latest deadly weapon: code name FZG-76. Back in England Henderson's boys will need to undergo advanced sniper training if they've any chance of infiltrating the bunker. Parachuting into occupied France, they track down a secret dossier filled with invaluable material - and uncover the meaning of the enigmatic code.

London, 1848—For four hundred years, England has been under the control of an immortal fae queen who tricked her way onto the throne. To maintain an illusion of benevolence, Queen Mor grants each of her subjects one opportunity to bargain for their deepest desire. As Ivy Benton prepares to make her debut, she knows that not even a deal with the queen could fix what has gone wrong: Her family’s social standing is in shambles, her sister is a shadow of her former self, and Ivy’s marriage prospects are nonexistent.

Ireland, 1846: Nell is working as a scullery maid in the kitchen of the Big House. Once she loved school and books and dreaming. But there's not much choice of work when the land grows food that rots in the earth. Now she is scrubbing, peeling, washing, sweeping for Sir Philip Wicken, the man who owns her home, her family's land, their crops, everything. His dogs are always well fed, even as famine sets in.

With starred reviews from School Library Journal, Booklist, and Kirkus Reviews, this moving novel by acclaimed author Walter Dean Myers is a modern classic. In the late 1960s, Richie Perry is growing up fast on the battlefields of Vietnam. But in the war-torn jungle, every moment is a struggle to survive. All Richie wants is to make it out alive.

Clever, headstrong Elizabeth Rose Camperdowne knows her duty. As the sole heiress to an old but impoverished noble family, Eliza must marry a man of wealth and title - it's the only fate for a girl of her standing. But when a surprising turn of events lands her in the royal court as a maid of honor to Anne of Cleves, Eliza is drawn into the dizzying, dangerous orbit of Henry the Eighth and struggles to distinguish friend from foe.

Using his father's watch as a key, Jake intends to return to Calypsos. Instead he's thrust into a strange desert land where he's joined by his friends Marika, Pindor, and Bach'uuk and his sister, Kady. As they try to figure out what to do next, a surprise attack by the beautiful young Princess Nefertiti takes them all captive. Soon even she is battling the Skull King's minions. For Jake has something the Skull King wants - a prize that will give its owner awesome power, including control of the fearsome Howling Sphinx.

Wren Southerland’s reckless use of magic has cost her everything: She's been dismissed from the Queen’s Guard and separated from her best friend - the girl she loves. So when a letter arrives from a reclusive lord, asking Wren to come to his estate, Colwick Hall, to cure his servant from a mysterious illness, she seizes her chance to redeem herself.

In My Bonny Light Horseman, the infamous pirate, riverboat seductress, master of disguise, and street-urchin-turned-sailor Jacky Faber has been captured by the French and beheaded in full view of her friends and crew.Inconceivable? Yes! The truth is she's secretly forced to pose as an American dancer behind enemy lines in Paris, where she entices a French general into revealing military secrets--all to save her dear friends.

Something dark and evil has awakened.... Evie O'Neill has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped off to the bustling streets of New York City - and she is pos-i-tute-ly ecstatic. It's 1926, and New York is filled with speakeasies, Ziegfeld girls, and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is that she has to live with her uncle Will and his unhealthy obsession with the occult. Evie worries her uncle will discover her darkest secret: a supernatural power that has only brought her trouble so far.

Kingdom's Edge is an action/adventure allegory of the life of Christ where swords, knights and battles are biblically symbolic. It is told by Cedric, a young peasant who is doomed to a life of hopelessness and despair, until he meets the "stranger." The stranger takes Cedric under his tutelage and trains him in the art of the sword, for this man is a true "Master of the Sword." When Cedric learns that hope and compassion are as great a weapon as the sword, he is propelled into a desperate battle against evil.

A sworn enemy of the Prince vows to eliminate his Followers. Until the Prince saves his life. For generations the Noble Knights have been in service to the King. Following a strict code of conduct, they preserve the peace in Chessington, the King's chosen city, and rule its citizenry. Sir Gavin is a young and promising Noble Knight, devoted to King and Code. Then a peasant disrupts the tranquility of Chessington, brazenly challenging the Code while claiming to be the son of the King: a Prince.

Jack Nevin’s clever trickery and moral flexibility make him the perfect assistant to the Enchantress, one of the most well-known stage magicians in turn-of-the-19th-century Europe. Without Jack’s steady supply of stolen tricks, the Enchantress’ fame would have burned out long ago. But when Jack’s thievery catches up to them, they’re forced to flee to America to find their fortune. Luckily, the Enchantress is able to arrange a set of sold-out shows at Seattle’s Alaska - Yukon - Pacific World’s Fair Exposition.

Adrian Montague has a bright future. The sole heir to his father’s estate, he is an up and coming political writer and engaged to an activist who challenges and inspires him. But most young Lords aren’t battling the debilitating anxiety Adrian secretly lives with, or the growing fear that it might consume him and all he hopes to accomplish. When a newly found keepsake of hers—a piece of a broken spyglass—comes into Adrian’s possession, he’s thrust into the past and finds himself face-to-face with an older brother he never knew he had.

The vivacious Jacky Faber return in the 10th tale in L. A. Meyer's Bloody Jack series! Once again under the thumb of British Intelligence, Jacky is sent to Spain to spy for the crown during the early days of the 19th-century Peninsular War. She finds herself in the company of guerilla freedom fighters, poses for the famous artist Goya, runs with the bulls, is kidnapped by the Spanish Inquisition, and travels with a caravan of gypsies...all while hoping to one day reunite with her beloved Jamie Fletcher.

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.

Dragons soar through the skies and protests erupt on the streets, but Vivien Featherswallow isn’t worried. She’s going to follow the rules, get a summer internship studying dragon languages, be smart, be sweet, and make sure her little sister never, ever has to risk growing up Third Class. She just has to free one dragon. By midnight, Viv has started a civil war. With her parents and cousin arrested and her sister missing, Viv is brought to Bletchley Park as a codebreaker—if she succeeds, she and her family can all go home again. If she doesn’t, they’ll all die.