Forthcoming Children’s and YA Historical Novels for 2025

The Historical Novel Society lists mainstream and small press titles for readers aged 4 – 18, set in eras from ancient times to the mid 1970s. Details are compiled by Fiona Sheppard (US, CAN, UK, ANZ) using publisher descriptions and recommended age suitability.

Other than short excerpts, please link to this page rather than copying the entries – thank you!

See our guide to forthcoming children’s and YA historical novels for 2024 for the previous year’s releases.

For adult titles, see our guides to forthcoming historical novels for 2025 and for 2024.

THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS. Please visit us again soon!

Last update: September 19, 2024

January 2025

H. M. Bouwman, Scattergood, Neal Porter, Age 9-12 (coming-of-age in rural Iowa in 1941, where twelve-year-old Peggy’s quiet life is turned upside down by refugee arrivals, first love, and a heartbreaking diagnosis)

Deborah Bodin Cohen, Kerry Olitzky, illus. Cinzia Battistel, Rembrandt Chooses a Queen, Apples & Honey, Age 4-8 (inspiring story of Judaism and art intersecting in 17th century Amsterdam)

Sarah Crossan, Where the Heart Should Be, Greenwillow, YA (historical novel-in-verse is a story of love, family, and the forces that can destroy us or bind us forever; set in 1847)

Judith Eagle, illus. Jo Rioux, The Accidental Stowaway, Walker Books US, Age 8-12 (rollicking transatlantic romp set in 1910, where a plucky girl accidentally stows away on a glamorous steamship, finding herself in the midst of a mystery)

L. M. Elliott, Truth, Lies and the Questions In Between, Algonquin YR, YA (timely exploration of 1973—the Watergate hearings, the Equal Rights Amendment, and Roe v. Wade—unfolds through the story of a young woman driven to question everything)

Camryn Garrett, The Forgotten Summer of Seneca, Amulet, Age 8-12 (in which a girl finds a doorway in Central Park that leads to the historical and magically preserved Seneca Village)

Julie Gilbert, illus. Soia Di Chiara Manetti, Penny and the Tragic Voyage, Stone Arch, Age 8-12 (Girls Survive series historical fiction about the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915)

Marianne Hering, Marshal Younger, Double Cross Down Under, Focus on the Family, Age 7+ (story of Reverend George Taplin and his friend James Unaipon, two faithful men of God serving the Aboriginal people)

Cheryl Willis Hudson, illus. London Ladd, When I Hear Spirituals, Holiday House, Age 6-9 (a girl connects with her heritage and history through twelve spirituals and four events —Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, Jr., the Great Migration, and the Enslaved People’s Uprising of 1811)

William Hussey, The Boy I Love, Andersen Press, YA (gay romance between two young soldiers as the summer of 1916 ticks down to one big push on the Somme)

Matthew K. Manning, illus. Dante Ginevra, Secrets Between States, Capstone Pr Inc, Age 7-10 (graphic novel featuring three stories about the most courageous spies of the World War I)

Shelia P. Moses, illus. Keith Mallett, Sharing the Dream, Nancy Paulsen, Age 4-7 (inspiring picture book portrait of a monumental day in US history, seen through a child’s eyes)

Marissa Moss, author and illustrator, Ellis Island Passover, Creston Books, Age 5-10 (Uncle Ezra shares the story of his first seder in America)

Vaunda Micheaux Nelson, Radiant, Dutton BfYR, Age 8-12 (set against the backdrop of the Birmingham church bombing, the Kennedy assassination, and Beatlemania, novel in verse is about race, class, faith, and finding your place in a loving family)

Sarah Raughley, The Queen’s Spade, HarperCollins, YA (loosely inspired by the true story of Sarah Forbes Bonetta, Queen Victoria’s African goddaughter)

Jewell Parker Rhodes, Will’s Race for Home, Little, Brown BfYR, Age 8-12 (adventure story about a son and his father who set out to win land during the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889)

Johan Rundberg, trans. Eva Apelqvist, The Lost Ones, Amazon Crossing Kids, Age 10-14 (Stockholm, 1880; Mika will do what it takes to make sure there are no more lost ones—and to bring the infamous killer, the Dark Angel, out into the light)

Kim Sigafus, illus. Soia Di Chiara Manetti, Faye and the Dangerous Journey, Stone Arch, Age 8-12 (historical fiction about the Ojibwe Removal of 1850, known as the Sandy Lake Tragedy, shows the terrible history through the eyes of one child)

Emma Bland Smith, Growing Up in the Shadow of Alcatraz, Capstone, Age 8-11 (story focusing on the more than 100 children and their parents who lived on Alcatraz Island where the parents worked at the notorious prison)

Cary Sneider, Starry Messages, Tumblehome Inc, Age 9-12 (in a series of letters to her nephew, Galileo’s daughter, Sister Maria Celeste, tells the story of her father’s discoveries with his telescope)

Maria van Lieshout, Song of a Blackbird, First Second, YA (fiction based on true events, story has two intertwined timelines: one is a modern-day family drama, the other a tale of a WWII-era bank heist carried out by Dutch resistance fighters)

February 2025

Jeannine Atkins, Green Promises: Girls Who Loved the Earth, Atheneum BfYR, Age 10+ (meet three remarkable historical women who followed their dreams and paved a path for women in science)

Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, illus. Hagar Ophir, Golden Threads, Ayin Press, Age 8-12 (draws on a series of inspiring historical episodes in Fès, 1920, when Jewish and Muslim artisans organized against the introduction of a new machine that threatened to replace their manual labor)

Anne Blankman, The Enemy’s Daughter, Viking BfYR, Age 8-12 (the tale of a girl fighting her way back home after surviving the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915)

Libba Bray, Under the Same Stars, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (BYR), YA (historical mystery that examines truth, rebellion, reconciliation. Set in 1940s, 1980s and spring 2020)

Deborah Bodin Cohen, Kerry Olitzky, illus. Martina Peluso, Twist, Tumble, Triumph, Kar-Ben, Age 5-8 (picture book story of gymnast Ágnes Keleti, a Hungarian Jew who worked during WWII using Christian identity papers, and dreaming of the Olympics)

Adrianna Cuevas, What Fell from the Sky, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (BYR), Age 8-12 (based on true events that occurred in 1950s America, story is about a boy whose rural Texan town becomes the setting of a military training exercise in which the army pretends to be Communist forces that have taken over)

Kate Fodor & Laurie Petrou, The Rehearsal Club, Groundwood, Age 9-12 (a mystery spans decades at the Rehearsal Club in this story of sisterhood and friendship)

Adam Gidwitz, Max in the Land of Lies, Dutton BfYR, Age 8-12 (follow-up to Max in the House of Spies in which Max returns home to Berlin as a British spy)

Joshua M. Greene, Fighter in the Woods, Scholastic Focus, Age 8-12 (true story of a Jewish girl in Nazi-occupied Poland who escaped near death to join and fight with the Soviet partisans)

Stacy S. Jensen, illus. Victo Ngai, Before I Lived Here, Neal Porter, Age 4-8 (a backwards history book which helps young readers to understand what came before – from a contemporary building to ranches, to log cabins to indigenous people and their eviction from their lands)

Carole Lindstrom, illus. Aly McKnight, The Gift of the Great Buffalo, Bloomsbury Children’s Books, Age 4-8 (picture book illuminates the true history of Native-American life on the prairies in the 1800s)

Emma Otheguy, illus. Poly Bernatene, Cousins in the Time of Magic, Atheneum BfYR, Age 8-12 (historical fantasy in which three cousins get transported back to 1862 to play an important role in the Battle of Puebla)

March 2025

Marcie Flinchum Atkins, One Step Forward, Versify, YA (coming-of-age novel, told in verse,about 19-year-old Matilda Young, the youngest suffragist to be imprisoned and mistreated for lawful protests during WWI)

Karen Briner, Starry, Starry Heist, Holiday House, Age 8-12 (time travel adventure in which Max discovers his sick mother’s fate is connected to post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh, who painted his most famous work under a twinkling night sky in Arles, 1899)

M. M. Downing & S. J. Waugh, The Adventures of the Flash Gang: Berlin Breakout, Regal House, Age 8-12 (book three in which two friends must use all their street wiles—with the help of a Flash or two—in 1936 Berlin)

Ursula Murray Husted, Botticelli’s Apprentice, Quill Tree, Age 8-12 (graphic novel set in Renaissance Italy, following a young girl’s quest to become an apprentice to Sandro Botticelli)

Jeramey Kraatz, illus. Crystal Jayme, I Witnessed: The Lizzie Borden Story, HarperAlley, Age 8-12 (story of a boy who witnesses a crime: graphic novel true crime series)

Jennie Liu, The Red Car to Hollywood, Carolrhoda Lab, YA (Los Angeles, 1924; sixteen-year-old Ruby Chan forges her own way in LA with the help of friend and actress Anna May Wong)

M. K. Lobb, To Steal From Thieves, Little, Brown BfYR, YA (an alchemologist and a con man team up to steal a rare necklace from the 1851 Great Exhibition in London)

Calvin Alexander Ramsey, illus. R. Gregory Christie, The Library in the Woods, Carolrhoda Books, Age 7-11 (follows a Black boy in 1959 North Carolina, whose new friends show him the Negro Library)

Linda Joan Smith, The Peach Thief, Candlewick, Age 8-12 (middle-grade debut set in 1850s Lancashire, England, explores longing, belonging, and the courage it takes to find your place)

Lauren Tarshis, illus. Karen De la Vega, I Survived the Great Molasses Flood, 1919, Graphix, Age 8-12 (graphic novel adaptation)
Also: I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, 1912 (graphic novel adaptation)

Rabiah York, illus. Maneli Manouchehri, The One and Only Rumi, Nancy Paulsen, Age 4-8 (the story of Rumi’s journey from a young refugee to a renowned poet shows how his childhood helped shape his poetry)

April 2025

Laurie Halse Anderson, Rebellion 1776, Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books, Age 10-14 (historical fiction adventure about a girl struggling to survive amid a smallpox epidemic, the public’s fear of inoculation, and the seething Revolutionary War)

Nydia Armendia-Sánchez, illus. by Loris Lora, Frida Kahlo’s Flower Crown, Abrams BfYR, Age 5-8 (a picture book biography of celebrated artist Frida Kahlo, told through the language of flowers)

Marie Benedict, Courtney Sheinmel, The Secrets of Lovelace Academy, Aladdin, Age 8-12 (a historical adventure about a young girl plucked from a London orphanage to begin attending a boarding school with more secrets than she could imagine)

Jennifer Bohnhoff, In the Shadow of Sunrise, Kinkajou Press, Age 9-12 (Earth Shadow joins the clan’ s adults on the annual Walk Around and hunt)

Sharon Fujimoto-Johnson, Shell Song, Beach Lane, Age 4+ (based on the author’s true family history, picture book about Japanese American incarceration in Hawai’i during World War II is a moving tribute to the importance of finding hope in dark times)

Amalie Howard, Lady Knight, Random House/Joy Revolution, YA (follows the daughter of a duke, defying the rules of high society in regency-era London)

Emily Jones, Nahia, Holiday House, Age 9-12 (historical fantasy coming-of-age story set in Spain, 8000 years ago)

Tami Lehman-Wilzig, illus. Alisha Monnin, On the Wings of Eagles, Apples & Honey, Age 5-8 (picture book dramatizes the story of Haila, a Yemenite girl, who with her family was airlifted to safety during Operation Magic Carpet)

Irene Marchesini, trans. Carla Roncalli Di Montorio, illus. Carlotta Dicataldo, Rebis: Born and Reborn, First Second, YA (medieval story about the friendship between a runaway child and a mysterious witch)

Nora Neus, illus. Julie Robine, Renegade Girls, Little, Brown Ink, YA (graphic imagining based on real-life undercover reporter Nell Nelson and photography pioneer Alice Austen)

Zachary Pullen, Casey Rislov, A Home for Steamboat, Mountain Stars Press, Age 5-7 (inspirational story based on the famous horse Steamboat’s life)

Lupe Ruiz-Flores, The Pecan Sheller, Carolrhoda Books, Age 10-14 (in 1930s San Antonio, thirteen-year-old Petra dreams of going to college and becoming a writer)

Barb Rosenstock, American Spirits: The Famous Fox Sisters, Calkins Creek, YA (a true tale of the 19th-century Fox sisters whose claims to communicate with ghosts launched a spiritualism craze)

Leah Schanke, illus. by Oboh Moses, Freedom at Dawn: Robert Small’s Voyage Out of Slavery, Albert Whitman Age 4-8 (true story of one man’s brave plan to free his family from slavery)

May 2025

María Teresa Andruetto, trans. Elisa Amado, illus. Martina Trach, Clara and the Man with Books in his Window, Greystone Kids, Age 5+ (tale about friendship and about the world available to us when we open a book; set in rural 1920s Argentina)

Taylor Banks, Billions to Burn, Melissa de la Cruz, Age 8-12 (Zeus and his friends uncover long-buried secrets about the Harlem Renaissance, Black history, and Zeus’s own family)

Penny Parker Klostermann, illus. by Anne Lambelet, The Spider Lady, Calkins Creek, Age 7-10 (fictional biography of Nan Songer who collected and bred spiders in her home and found new ways to use their silk to help the U.S. win the war)

June 2025

Jessie Burton, Hidden Treasure, Bloomsbury Children’s, Age 9+ (Bo, whose dad is dead, and Billy, an orphan, are both from poor families and have never met, but now they have each found half of a priceless treasure, given up by the river Thames)

Anna James, illus. David Wyatt, Alice With a Why: Chronicles of Whetherwhy, HarperCollinsChildren’sBooks, Age 9-12 (fantasy series in a war-torn Wonderland, beginning in 1924, when Alyce is sent to live with her grandmother after her father is killed in WWI)

Anna Rose Johnson, The Blossoming Summer, Holiday House, Age 8-12 (when English Rosemary is evacuated to her grandmother in America at the start of World War II, she discovers that her heritage is Anishinaabe passing as white)

Caroline L. Perry, illus. Jennifer Bricking, The Memory Cake, Holiday House, Age 6-8 (a grandmother shares her experience of growing up in Malta during World War II)

Jean-Claude van Rijckeghem, trans. by Kristen Gehrman, Daughter of Doom, Em Querido, YA (Denmark 870; follows the unlikely friendship between Yrsa, the daughter of a Danish helmsman and Sister Job, a nun)

July 2025

August 2025

James Lincoln Collier, After My Brother Sam, Scholastic, Age 9-12 (picks up the story of My Brother Sam Is Dead in another examination of patriotism, family, and what it means to be an American)

Alyssa Colman, Where Only Storms Grow, Farrar, Straus & Giroux BYR, Age 8-12 (a hopeful middle grade historical novel set during the Dust Bowl)

Uri Shulevitz, author and illustrator, The Sky Was My Blanket, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (BYR), Age 10-14 (true story of a young Polish exile fighting to survive in war-torn Europe)