Teen Reads
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Historical Fiction

The Pox Party taken from accounts by [Octavius Nothing's] own hand and other sundry sources; collected by M.T. Anderson of Boston
Various diaries, letters, and other manuscripts chronicle the experiences of Octavian, a young African American, from birth to age sixteen, as he is brought up as part of a science experiment in the years leading up to and during the Revolutionary War.

Sacajawea: the Story of Bird Woman and the Lewis and Clark Expedition by Joseph Bruchac
Sacajawea, a Shoshoni Indian interpreter, peacemaker, and guide, and William Clark alternate in describing their experiences on the Lewis and Clark Expedition to the Northwest.

Enter Three Witches: a Story of Macbeth by Caroline B. Cooney
After King Duncan is murdered, Mary, the ward of Lord and Lady Macbeth, comes to realize that her future lies in the hands of a power-hungry couple who will do anything to get their own way.

Troy by Adele Geras
Told from the point of view of the women of Troy, portrays the last weeks of the Trojan War, when women are sick of tending the wounded, men are tired of fighting, and bored gods and goddesses find ways to stir things up.

The Kite Rider by Geraldine McCaughrean
In thirteenth-century China, after trying to save his widowed mother from a horrendous second marriage, twelve-year-old Haoyou has life-changing adventures when he takes to the sky as a circus kite rider and ends up meeting the great Mongol ruler Kublai Khan.

An Earthly Knight by Janet McNaughton
In 1162 in Scotland, sixteen-year-old Jenny Avenel falls in love with the mysterious Tam Lin while being courted by the king's brother and must navigate the tides of tradition and the power of ancient magic to define her own destiny.

Beware, Princess Elizabeth by Carolyn Meyer
After the death of her father, King Henry VIII, in 1547, thirteen-year-old Elizabeth must endure the political intrigues and dangers of the reigns of her half-brother Edward and her half-sister Mary before finally becoming Queen of England eleven years later.

Fallen angels by Walter Dean Myers
Seventeen-year-old Richie Perry, just out of his Harlem high school, enlists in the Army in the summer of 1967 and spends a devastating year on active duty in Vietnam.

Tamar by Mal Peet
In England in 1995, fifteen-year-old Tamar, grief-stricken by the puzzling death of her beloved grandfather, slowly begins to uncover the secrets of his life in the Dutch resistance during the last year of the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, and the climactic events that forever cast a shadow on his life and that of his family.

Redwulf's Curse: a Tom Marlowe Adventure by Chris Priestley
Tom and Dr. Harker travel to Norfolk where it is believed the bones of Redwulf, an ancient warrior king, have been discovered, but the discovery has also unearthed an ancient curse and when two murders occur it is up to Tom to separate legend from fact to solve the mystery.

The Trap by John Smelcer
In alternating chapters, seventeen-year-old Johnny Least-Weasel, who is better known for brains than brawn, worries about his missing grandfather, and the grandfather, Albert Least-Weasel, struggles to survive, caught in his own steel trap in the Alaskan winter.

Forged in the Fire by Ann Turnbull
After spending three years apart, eighteen-year-old Susanna is eager to be reunited with her fiance Will who is due to arrive from London so that they can be married, but it is the summer of 1665 and, unbeknownst to Susanna, the plague is beginning to spread throughout the city.

Climbing the Stairs by Padma Venkatraman
In India, in 1941, when her father becomes brain-damaged in a non-violent protest march, fifteen-year-old Vidya and her family are forced to move in with her father's extended family and become accustomed to a totally different way of life.

Germania by John Wilson
It's A.D. 79 and an old man, Lucius Quintus Claudianus, has been abandoned in a villa outside Herculaneum. As the eruption of Vesuvius builds to its devastating climax, Lucius writes the story of his life, including the part he played seventy years before when three entire legions were caught and massacred in the German forests.