Teen Military Fiction

Carl Lavin was a high school senior when Pearl Harbor was attacked. The Canton, Ohio, native enlisted when he turned 18, a decision that would take him with the US Army from training across the United States and Britain to combat with the 84th Infantry Division in the Battle of the Bulge. Home Front to Battlefront is the tale of a foot soldier who finds himself thrust into a world where he and his unit grapple with the horrors of combat, the idiocies of bureaucracy, and the oddities of life back home - all in the same day.

In 1861, 16-year-old Joe Roberts leads a mundane life as far as he's concerned. His world spins in the same circle each day: working at his family's store, taking his sisters on boyish escapades, and bickering with his rogue of a cousin, Lucas. Joe can't understand why his mother allows Lucas to live and work with them after all the pain he caused their family. When war is declared, Joe is quick to join up and become a soldier with the 11th Pennsylvania Volunteers, but war is nothing like he imagined.

C.S. Forester, creator of the beloved Horatio Hornblower series, takes young readers on an exciting adventure to the shores of Tripoli in North Africa. That's where, more than 200 years ago, the United States was threatened by "pirates" who snatched American merchant ships and imprisoned sailors - and the country's young, untested navy took on the task of fighting the pirates in their home waters.

A fast paced, gritty murder mystery through the wilds of territorial New Mexico's Rio Grande Valley with the feel of a Tony Hillerman novel and the complexity of a Ngaio Marsh mystery. Pueblos, Apache, former Mexican citizens and the US Army collide in a tale of greed and murder. A new civil war mystery series by best-selling author Phillip and Jennifer Bryant. Peter Thomas Smith's days on the post of Fort Craig, New Mexico territory, are spent fighting boredom, keeping cool, and giving the spiritual state of the fifth California Mounted Infantry volunteers a ready ear.

Levi Battle's been left behind all his life. His mother could sing like a bird and she flew away like one, too. His father left him with his grandmother so he could work as a traveling salesman - until Levi's grandmother left this world entirely. Now Levi's staying with his Aunt Odella while his father is serving in the US Army. But it's 1945, and the war is nearly over, and Aunt Odella decides it's time for Levi to do some leaving of his own. Before he can blink, Levi finds himself on a train from Chicago to Fayettville, North Carolina.

Sibert Honor author Deborah Hopkinson brings her signature action-packed narrative style to one of the most crucial battles of WWII. The WWII invasion known as D-Day was the largest military endeavor in history. By June 6, 1944, Hitler and his allies had a strong grip on the European continent, where Nazi Germany was engaged in the mass extermination of the Jewish people. The goal of D-Day was the total defeat of Hitler's regime and the defense of free democracies everywhere. Knowing they had to breach the French coast, the US, Great Britain, and Canada planned for the impossible.

A heartwarming story of a stray dog and a US marine who met under the unlikeliest circumstances in Afghanistan - and who changed each other's lives forever.

Ever since Corey Fletcher found out that he’s the world’s first “throwback,” with the power to not only visit history, but change it, he’s been spending as much time in the past as possible. Corey loves using his skills to fix problems and help his friends and family. But as Corey becomes more and more addicted to rewriting history, he learns that time travel might change him in ways he may never be able to reverse.

In a ruined world, choices are a thing of the past. What happens when a Creation seizes hers anyway? Nearly a century ago, an extraterrestrial attack destroyed the majority of the world and decimated humanity. In a time of war, protection is needed. Designed to fight for their country, twins Kylie and Luke Alexander are Second Generation Creations, emotionless genetically altered fighters. They have one mission. Fight and live to fight again. But these twins are hiding impossible feelings and deadly secrets.

As the Civil War rages, 15-year-old Thomas Beck longs to fight for his country. He's underage, but his brother, Robert, claims there's another reason he can't fight: There's no such thing as a Chinese Yankee. Assumed a slave because of his odd appearance - including his traditional Chinese queue (long braid) - Thomas soon discovers that giving battle with his regiment isn't enough to shed the Chinese label from his Yankee status.

No one in the galaxy gives a damn about Kheris, a war-torn mining colony in the Between. Thirteen-year-old Luka is used to running from trouble, living rough with a gang of street kids, stealing from the Imperial troops and selling scavenged tech and intel to the Wintran-backed resistance fighters to survive. But when a mysterious ship crashes in the desert, his life is turned upside down overnight. Suddenly Kheris is on everyone’s radar, and he finds himself caught between the two warring factions.

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.

At the start of 1991, 11-year-old Ali Fadhil was consumed by his love for soccer, video games, and American television shows. Then, on January 17, Iraq's dictator, Saddam Hussein, went to war with 34 nations led by the United States. Over the next 43 days, Ali and his family survived bombings, food shortages, and constant fear. Ali and his brothers played soccer on the abandoned streets of their Basra neighborhood, wondering when or if their medic father would return from the war front. Cinematic, accessible, and timely, this is the story of one ordinary kid's view of life during war.

During the Revolutionary War, 14-year-old Nathan Wade joins forces with his older cousin, the inventor David Bushnell, to secretly build the first submarine used in naval warfare.

When 18-year-old Ellen accepts the post of housekeeper at Hallendorf School of Music, Drama and Dance she wasn't expecting it to be quite so unusual. For deep in the beautiful Austrian countryside, she finds an eccentrically magical world occupied by wild children and even wilder teachers, experimental dancers, and a tortoise on wheels.

Reconstructed from actual letters and diaries, this is the story of four young people living in Philadelphia whose lives become intertwined when the American Civil War begins in 1861. Jan is a German immigrant who begins his studies at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg. Emma is a Quaker who has learned survival skills growing up in a thick forest. Gabrielle, is a Southerner, was raised by her governess and wealthy Virginian father. Maura travels alone to America from Ireland to escape the potato famine and eventually enters the convent as a Sister of Mercy.

In the young readers’ edition of his New York Times best-selling book, Fox News anchor Bret Baier examines the historic transition and Eisenhower’s last chance to lead the country he loved through his legendary farewell address and his personal appeals to Kennedy. Baier paints a vivid picture of the contrasts between old and new at the beginning of a decisive decade in American history. Eisenhower and Kennedy were very different men.

There are winged horses that live in the mirrors of Briar Hill hospital. In the mirrors that line its grand hallways, which once belonged to a princess. In those that reflect the elegant rooms, now filled with sick children. It is her secret. One morning, when Emmaline climbs over the wall of the hospital's abandoned gardens, she discovers something incredible: a white horse with broken wings has left the mirror-world and entered her own.

A boy and his elephant escape into the jungle when the Viet Cong attack his village immediately after the Vietnam war.

Craig Crist-Evans has written a wrenching novel of a family whose internal battles chase one son away - into the clutches of a war and an enemy he could never have imagined. Told both from a soldier’s view and by the brother he leaves behind, Amaryllis is an ideal choice for students learning about the Vietnam era, or for any reader curious about the reality of war.