Guide to children’s and YA historical novels for 2017
The following is our list of 2017 historical novels, for junior, middle-grade and YA, compiled by Fiona Sheppard, using US, CAN & UK catalogues. We list titles up to and including the 1960s based on publisher descriptions, and include the age category the book is aimed at. Other than short excerpts, please link to this page rather than copying the entries – thank you!
For newer titles, check out of lists of forthcoming adult historical novels for 2021 and for children and YA for 2021.
January 2017
Janet Barkhouse, illus. Therese Cilia, Keeper of the Light, Formac Publishing, Age 5 – 9 (story based on experiences of children who worked in lighthouses in 1920s)
Stefano Benni, (trans: Howard Curtis), The Story of Cyrano De Bergerac (Save the Story), Pushkin Children’s Books, Age 8 – 12 (France’s best tale of love and panache, retold for children)
H. M. Bouwman, A Crack in the Sea, G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers, Age 10 + (3 interconnecting stories- historical fantasy adventure, 1781 to 1978)
Alexandra Bracken, Wayfarer, Disney-Hyperion, Age 14 + (adventure series – from colonial Nassau to NYC, San Francisco to Carthage, imperial Russia to Vatican catacombs)
Brittany Cavallaro, A Study in Charlotte, Katherine Tegen, Age 13 + (a contemporary remix of the Holmes and Watson adventures)
Juno Dawson, Margot and Me, Hot Key, Age 12 + (Fliss finds the diary her grandmother kept as a 17-year-old Blitz evacuee during the early months of the WW II)
Umberto Eco, (trans: Stephen Sartarelli), The Story of the Betrothed (Save the Story), Pushkin Children’s Books, Age 8 – 12 (Lombardy, 1628 – young lovers Lorenzo & Lucia are planning their wedding)
Alex Flinn, Beheld, HarperTeen, Age 13 + (re-imaginings of 4 fairytales taking place in 1600s Salem, 1800s Bavaria, 1940s London & contemporary Miami)
Alison Goodman, The Dark Days Pact (Dark Days Club 2), Viking Books for Young Readers, Age 14 + (Bristol, England June 1812 – Lady Helen is now a full member of the demon-hunting club)
Michael Grant, Silver Stars, Katherine Tegen, Age 14 + (sequel to Front Lines – 1943, alternate history coming-of-age story of three girls fighting their own battles in the midst of WWII)
Elise Gravel, The Great Antonio, Toon Books/PGCanada, Age 5 + (story begins in 1946 when Yugoslavian Antonio Barichievich arrives in Halifax as a refugee)
A. G. Howard, Roseblood, Amulet Books, Age 13 + (a “Phantom of the Opera”-inspired romantic retelling in which Rune’s biggest talent is also her biggest curse)
Mark Huckerby, Nick Ostler, Defender of the Realm, Scholastic Press, Age 8 – 12 (two kids with very different lives get caught up in a centuries-old battle for the fate of Britain)
Linda Williams Jackson, Midnight Without a Moon, HMH Books for Young Readers,
Age 10–12 (summer 1955 Mississippi – debut novel blends fictional account with facts from famous trial that provoked change in race relations)
Marianne Kaurin, (trans: Rosie Hedger), Almost Autumn, Arthur A. Levine Books, Age 12 + (October 1942, Oslo, Norway-recreates the atmosphere of secrecy and uncertainty of WW II in a story of sorrow, chance, and first love)
Liza Ketchum, The Life Fantastic: A Novel in Three Acts, Merit Press, Age 13 + (1913 age of vaudeville. Novel takes place against a complex racial backdrop of American history)
Kirby Larson, Audacity Jones Steals the Show (Audacity Jones #2), Scholastic Press,
Age 8 – 12 (Audacity & Bimmy discover a plot to jeopardize Houdini’s latest illusion)
Julie Lawson, White Jade Tiger (2nd edition), Dundurn, Age 9 – 12 (on a trip to Chinatown, Victoria, B.C, Jasmine falls though a doorway to the 1800s)
Julia Lee, Nancy Parker’s Spooky Speculations (Book 2), Oxford, Age 10 + (14-year-old Nancy Potter, housemaid and sleuth extraordinaire, is off on a new adventure. England 1920)
Caroline Leech, Wait for Me, HarperTeen, Age 13 + (Scotland, WWII : romance between a Scottish girl and a German POW)
Celeste Lim, The Crystal Ribbon, Scholastic Press, Age 8 – 12 (medieval China – 12-year-old Li escapes a life of slavery and finds her way home with help of a spider & a nightingale)
Nicholas O. Time, There’s no WiFi on the Prairie (In Due Time 5), Simon Spotlight,
Ages 8 – 12 (Ava learns to live without technology in 1891)
Michelle Paver, Warrior Bronze (Gods and Warriors), Dial Books, Age 8 – 12 (conclusion to adventure series mixing historical context with myth and magic)
Gigi Priebe, illus. Daniel Duncan, The Adventures of Henry Whiskers (1), Aladdin,
Age 7 – 10 (debut series set in Queen Mary’s historical dollhouse at Windsor Castle)
Patricia Hruby Powell, illus. Shadra Strickland, Loving vs. Virginia : A Documentary Novel of the Landmark Civil Rights Case, Chronicle Books, Age 12 – 18 (1955 court case about interracial marriage)
Whitney Sanderson, illus. Ruth Sanderson, Horse Diaries #14: Calvino, Random House Books for Young Readers, Age 8 – 12 (an Andalusian horse in southern Spain, 1570s)
Dan Scott, Blood Vengeance: Book 4 (Gladiator School), Scribo, Age 9 + (series set in ancient Rome, full of battles, fierce loyalty and even fiercer rivalry)
Geronimo Stilton, Lost in Time (Journey Through Time #4), Scholastic Paperbacks,
Age 7 – 10, (Geronimo meets Cleopatra, Genghis Khan, Dante, Elizabeth I & more)
Jerry Spinelli, The Warden’s Daughter, Knopf Books for Young Readers, Age 9 – 12 (summer 1959 – coming-of-age story of loss and redemption)
Jordan Stratford, illus. Kelly Murphy, The Case of the Counterfeit Criminals (Wollstonecraft Detective Agency, Book 3), Knopf Books for Young Readers, Age 8 – 12 (history-mystery-science adventure series)
Gloria Ann Wesley, illus. Richard Rudnicki, Abigail’s Wish, Nimbus, Age 5 – 9 (children’s picture book story set in the early years of Birchtown, Nova Scotia)
Ru Xu, NewsPrints, GRAPHIX, Age 8 – 12 (steampunk world in the midst of tumultuous changes: graphic novel about power of friendship and being true to yourself)
February 2017
American Girl Publishing, Age 8 – 12
Emma Carlson Berne, The Lady’s Slipper: A Melody Mystery (1960s)
Kathleen Ernst, Gunpowder and Tea Cakes (Revolutionary Periods)
Alison Hart, The Runaway: A Maryellen Mystery (1950s)
Kathryn Reiss, Message in a Bottle: A Julie Mystery (1970s)
Valerie Tripp, Love and Loyalty (Revolutionary Periods)
Valerie Tripp, A Stand for Independence (Revolutionary Periods)
Shane Arbuthnott, Dominion, Orca, Age 10 – 14 (on the edge of the New World, in the British Dominion of Terra Nova, Molly and her family collect spirits aboard their airship, the ‘Legerdemain’)
Sigmund W. Brouwer, Innocent Heroes : Stories of Animals in the First World War, Tundra Books, Age 9 – 12 (eight connected fictional stories about a Canadian platoon in WW I)
Brittany Cavallaro, The Last of August, Katherine Tegen, Age 13 + (action adventure in a chase across Europe to untangle a web of truths about the Homes & Moriarty families)
J. Anderson Coats, The Many Reflections of Miss Jane Deming, Atheneum Books for Young Readers, Age 10+ (Seattle – Civil War period)
Sara Crowe, Bone Jack, Philomel Books, Age 10 + (northern England – haunting story of magic and myth as one boy straddles the worlds of life and death in order to save his father and his best friend)
Carole Estby Dagg, Sweet Home Alaska, Puffin Books, Age 10 + (1934 – family move from Wisonsin to Alaska after mill closes and father becomes unemployed)
Ruth Davidson, Piercing the Veil, Carpenter’s Son Publishing, Age 12 – 17 (Ben discovers an ancient mirror which can pierce the veil of reality, and travels back to the time of Jesus. Inspirational)
Heather Demetrios, Freedom’s Slave (Dark Caravan #3), Balzer & Bray, Age 13 +
(final book in trilogy – modern jinni fantasy-adventure)
Ruth Tenzer Feldman, Seven Stitches, Ooligan Press, Age 14 + (Meryem time-travels between 21st –c Portland and 16th –c Istanbul to rebuild her family and fight for justice)
James Hartley, The Invisible Hand: Shakespeare’s Moon, Act 1, Lodestone, Age 12 +
(a boy at new boarding school travels back to medieval Scotland)
Heidi Heilig, The Girl from Everywhere, Greenwillow Books, Age 13 + (time-travel adventure from modern-day New York to 19th –c Hawaii and places of myth and legend)
P. J. Hoover, Tut: My Epic Battle to Save the World, Starscape, Age 8 – 12 (sequel to
Tut: My Immortal Life: 8th-grader King Tut foils the Egyptian gods in this funny middle-grade series)
Jennifer Latham, Dreamland Burning, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, Age 12 + (interwoven alternating perspectives bring to life 1921 Tulsa race riot)
Kimberley Griffiths Little, Returned, HarperCollins, Age 14 + (Jayden & Kadesh fight a war to save their Mesopotamian kingdom. Last in trilogy after Forbidden and Banished)
Leslie Livingston, The Valiant, Razorbill, Age 12 + (historical fantasy recounts 17-yr-old’s journey from fierce Celtic princess to legendary female gladiator)
Stephanie Morrill, The Lost Girl of Astor Street, Blink, Age 13 + (mystery takes readers from glitzy homes of elite to the dark underbelly of 1920s Chicago)
Jerdine Nolen, Calico Girl, S&S/Paula Wiseman Books, Age 8 – 12 (Civil War offers slaves hope that freedom may be on the horizon)
Mary Pope Osborne, illus. Sal Murdocca, World at War, 1944, Random House Books for Young Readers, Age 7 – 10 (the magic tree house takes Jack & Annie back to WWII)
K. M. Peyton, Wild Lily, David Fickling Books, Age 12 + (1920s – delightful coming-of-age of a scruffy girl called Lily Gabriel)
Arushi Raina, When Morning Comes, Tradewind Books, Age 14 + (four main characters tell of apartheid in Johannesburg, South Africa, just before 1976 Soweto Uprising)
Caroline Starr Rose, Jasper and the Riddle of Riley’s Mine, G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers, Age 10 + (hoping to strike it rich, two brothers journey to Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush)
Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch, Making Bombs for Hitler, Scholastic Press, Age 8 – 12 (assigned to make bombs for the Germany army Lida decides to sabotage them and the Nazis instead)
Andrea Spalding, Finders Keepers (3rd edition), Dundurn, Age 9 – 12 (a 8,000 yr old arrow head takes Danny into the distant past to learn about himself & those who came before him)
Eve Titus, illus. Paul Galdone, Basil in the Wild West, Aladdin, Age 7 – 10
(next in the ‘Great Mouse Detective’ series)
Neil Tonge, Survivors: A Victorian Mine Disaster: A Young Boy’s Story, Wayland, Age 9 – 11 (part of collection of fiction about real life conflicts)
Ryan Tubridy, illus. P.J. Lynch, Patrick and the President, Candlewick, Age 6 – 9
(1963 – JFK visits Ireland, his ancestral home)
Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy, HarperCollins, Age 8 – 12 (based on the real life adventures of Almanzo Wilder)
Barry Wittenstein, illus. London Ladd, Waiting for Pumpsie, Charlesbridge, Age 5 – 8
(1959 – fictionalized account of baseball’s Pumpsie Green’s rise to the major leagues)
Joan M. Wolf, Runs With Courage, Sleeping Bear Press, Age 9 + (1880 : 10-yr-old Lakota girl must hold on to her heritage when sent to white boarding school)
March 2017
M.T. Anderson, illus. Andrea Offermann, Yvain: The Knight of the Lion, Candlewick,
Age 12 + (a graphic visual presentation of an Arthurian romantic poem by Chrétien de Troyes)
Stefan Bachmann, A Drop of Night, Greenwillow Books, Age 13 + (time-slip novel alternating between contemporary and 1789 Paris) check if already listed
Andrew Brumbach, The Eye of Midnight, Yearling, Age 9 – 12 (action-adventure combines a 1920s New York setting with ancient Turkish & Arabian folklore and history)
Irène Cohen-Janca, illus. Maurizio A.C. Quarello, The Golem of Prague, Annick Press,
Age 9 – 12 (re-telling of an ancient Jewish legend dating back to persecution of 1500s)
Sarah Cohen-Scali, Max, Roaring Brook Press, Age 15 + (Nazi Germany, 1936 – depicts the life of a boy bred to be the perfect Aryan child until he befriends a young Jewish boy)
Tania del Rio, illus. Will Staehle, Warren the 13th and the Whispering Woods, Quirk Books,
Age 10 + (sequel to Warren the 13th and the All-Seeing Eye)
Alexandre Dumas, Crystal Chan, Nokman Poon, Manga Classics : The Count of Monte Cristo, UDON Entertainment, Age 12 – 18
Also in Manga Classics series:
Jane Austen, Stacy King, Po Tse, Sense and Sensibility (Aug 2016)
Charlotte Bronte, Stacy King, SunNeko Lee, Jane Eyre (Nov 2016)
Rudyard Kipling, Crystal S Chan, J Choy, The Jungle Book (March 2017)
Edgar Allen Poe, Stacy King, The Stories of Edgar Allen Poe (Sept 2017)
Carol Goodman, The Metropolitans, Viking Books for Young Readers, Age 10 + (Dec 7, 1941 – four girls seek the hidden pages of an ancient book of Arthurian legends, said to hold the key to preventing a second attack on American soil)
Dan Gutman, Flashback Four #1: The Lincoln Project, HarperCollins, Age 8 – 12 (adventure time-travel with a mix of history and humour)
Alwyn Hamilton, Traitor to the Throne (Rebel of the Sands 2), Viking Books for Young Readers, Age 12 + (fantasy romance adventure combines Middle East with steampunk Old West)
Jody Hedlund, For Love and Honor, Zondervan, Age 13 + (April 1391, Maidstone Castle, Hampton – inspirational historical romance)
Heidi Heilig, The Ship Beyond Time, Greenwillow Books, Age 13 + (fantasy weaving history & romance together to tackle question of free will, fate and what it means to love- sequel to The Girl From Everywhere)
Kathryn Lasky, Night Witches: A Novel of World War Two, Scholastic Press, Ages 13 +
(adventure of the teen girl fighter pilots who took on Hitler’s army . . . and won)
David Mellon, Silent, Adams Media, Age 14 – 18 (set during WW I— a girl pretends to be a male soldier to protect her younger brothers)
S.D. Nelson, Red Cloud: A Lakota Story of War & Surrender, Abrams Books for Young Readers, Age 8 – 12 (1860s story of one of the most controversial native leaders in NA)
Lauren Oliver, H.C. Chester, Curiosity House: The Screaming Statue, HarperCollins,
Age 8 – 12 (four extraordinary orphans avenge their friend’s death)
Saviour Pirotta, illus. Freya Hartas, Mark of the Cyclops: An Ancient Greek Mystery (series: Flashbacks), Bloomsbury UK, Age 8 + (introduces the playwright Euripides & brings in characters from Greek mythology)
David Alexander Robertson, illus. Julie Flett, When We Were Alone, Highwater Press,
Age 4 – 8 (an exploration of a grandmother’s childhood in a residential school)
Tarun Shanker, Kelly Zekas, These Ruthless Deeds, Swoon Reads, Age 13 – 18 (England, 1882 – a rebellious heroine with the power to heal must face down a sinister society in Victorian London. Sequel to These Vicious Masks)
Tim Tingle, Danny Blackgoat: Dangerous Passage (series-Pathfinders), Second Story Press, Age 12 + (3rd in series. Civil War period. 1860s)
Lucy Worsely, My Name is Victoria, Bloomsbury Children’s, Age 12 + (Miss V Conroy is sent to Kensington Palace as a companion to the lonely Princess Victoria)
April 2017
Cindy Anstey, Duels & Deception, Swoon Reads, Age 12 – 18 (YA romance set in Regency-era London. Sequel to Love, Lies & Spies)
Patricia Bailey, The Tragically True Adventures of Kit Donovan, Albert Whitman & Company, Age 9 – 12 (coming-of-age in a 1905 Nevada mining town)
Ruth Behar, Lucky Broken Girl, Nancy Paulsen Books, Age 10 + (semi-autobiographical coming-of-age based in 1960s New York city)
Nicole Castroman, Blacksouls (Blackhearts Book 2), Simon Pulse, Age 12 +
(a re-imagined story featuring history’s most infamous pirate, Blackbeard)
Francesco D’Adamo, (trans. Sian Williams), Oh, Freedom!, Global Book Sales, Age 10 + (action adventure set in antebellum South following escape of young slave thru’ Underground Railroad)
Melissa de la Cruz, Alex and Eliza: A Love Story, G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers, Age 12 + (1777, Albany, New York – story brings to life the romance of Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler)
Melanie Fishbane, Maud: A Novel Inspired by the Life of L.M. Montgomery, Razorbill Canada, Age 12 + (based on the life of the author of Anne of Green Gables)
Jennifer Frick-Ruppert, illus. Lorna Murphy, Spirit Quest (The Legend of Skyco), Amberjack,
Age 9 – 13 (series brings to life the world of Algonquin tribe before arrival of English explorers)
Robert Graves, illus. Edward Ardizzone, Ann at Highwood Hall (c.1964), Triangle Square,
Age 5 – 9 (classic children’s book of verse evokes the world of Victorian England)
Fabian Grolleau, illus. Jeremie Royer, Audubon: On the Wings of the World, Nobrow, Age 14 + (based on Audubon’s own tales, his travels capture the wild & adventurous spirit of the naturalist and painter. Graphic novel format)
Dan Gutman, Flashback Four #2: The Titanic Mission, HarperCollins, Age 8 – 12 (the four embark on a journey to capture one of the most exciting & tragic moments in history)
Alison Hart, illus. Michael Montgomery, Darling; Mercy Dog of World War I, Peachtree,
Age 7 – 10 (story of a WW I canine hero)
Mary Hoffman, The Ravenmaster’s Boy, Greystone Press, Age 14 + (orphaned Kit discovers he can communicate with the ravens in his adopted father’s charge)
Jennifer L. Holm, Penny from Heaven, Yearling, Age 8 – 12 (a summer of adventure and secrets – 1953 – plus background on WWII, internment camps & 1950s America)
Norman Jorgensen, The Smuggler’s Curse, Fremantle Press, Age 9 – 12
(young Red is sold to an infamous smuggler; 19th –c N.W. coast of Australia)
Kickily, Musnet 3 : The Flames of the Limelight, Uncivilized Books, Age 8 +
(continuing adventures of the boy mouse of Monet – comic/graphic)
Rudyard Kipling, Kim (c.1901), Pan Macmillan, Age 10 + (classic tale of orphan Kimball O’Hara in late 19th –c India)
Elizabeth Laird, Dindy and the Elephant, Pan Macillan, Age 7 – 9 (portrait of a young British child coming to terms with leaving India, her childhood home)
Eric Luper, Key Hunters #5: The Titanic Treasure, Scholastic Paperbacks, Age 7 – 10 (it’s 1912 and Evan & Cleo are crewmembers aboard the doomed Titanic)
Sarah Matthias, A Berlin Love Song, Troika Books, Age 14 + (beautifully evoked love story between a Romani girl and a German soldier during WWII)
Amanda McCrina, Blood Road, Month9Books, Age 12 + (at height of Roman Empire, 19-yr-old Torien takes the Salt Road to find answers and to save the life of a local girl)
Richelle Mead, Midnight Jewel (The Glittering Court #2), Razorbill, Age 12 + (romantic fantasy series set in a mix of Elizabethan and frontier worlds)
Kate Messner, illus. Greg Ruth, Rolling Thunder, Scholastic Press, Age 4 – 8
(lyrical story honoring the bravery and sacrifice of American heroes)
Claire Rudolf Murphy, illus. Stacey Schuett, Marching With Aunt Susan : Susan B. Anthony and the Fight for Women’s Suffrage, Peachtree, Age 6 – 10
Lauren Oliver, H.C. Chester, Curiosity House: The Fearsome Firebird, HarperCollins,
Age 8 – 12 (four orphans discover a plot to destroy New York)
Randall Platt, Incommunicado, Sky Pony Press, Age 11 – 15 (Oregon coast, winter 1941 – when Pearl Harbour is attacked, 12-yr-old Jewels tries to protect a friend of Japanese ancestry)
Stewart Ross, Beware the King!, ReadZone Books, Age 7 – 11
(story of Henry VIII and his love for his second wife, Anne Boleyn)
Also in series:
Long Live Mary, Queen of Scots (the imprisoned Queen plans her escape)
Please Help Miss Nightingale (Florence Nightingale, Crimea 1854)
Sink the Armada! (a mighty battle with Sir Francis Drake)
The Lady of the Mercians (Saxon England – Alfred’s daughter, Aethelflaed)
We Are the First Emperor! (mighty Qin Shi Huang who noone dared defy)
William – the Conqueror (young Walter Gifford helps to conquer England, 1066)
Philip Roy, Me & Mr. Bell, Nimbus, Age 8 – 12 (it’s 1908 & 10-yr-old Eddie MacDonald shares Alexander Graham Bell’s passion for long walks and solving problems)
Shelley Sackier, The Freemason’s Daughter, HarperTeen, Age 13 + (an outlander-type YA series – romance & intrigue in early 19th –c Scotland)
Sarah L. Thomson, The Eagle’s Quill (Secrets of the Seven), Bloomsbury USA Childrens,
Age 8 – 12 (historical mystery adventure)
Laura Ingalls Wilder, Pioneer Sisters, HarperCollins, Age 6 – 10 (Laura, Mary and Carrie share adventures together) Also: The Adventures of Laura & Jack
N.D. Wilson, Outlaws of Time #2: The Song of Glory and Ghost, Katherine Tegen Books,
Age 8 – 12 (Sam leaps through the centuries. Sequel to The Legend of Sam Miracle)
Katherine Woodfine, The Mystery of the Painted Dragon, Egmont UK, Age 8 – 12 (historical mystery adventure with Edwardian period detail)
May 2017
Renee Ahdieh, Flame in the Mist, G. P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers, Age 12 + (in Feudal Japan, Mariko, daughter of a prominent samurai, infiltrates the ranks of the Black Clan)
Avi, The Unexpected Life of Oliver Cromwell Pitts: Being and Absolutely Accurate Autobiographical Account of my Follies, Fortune and Fate, Algonquin Young Readers,
Age 9 – 13 (Melcombe Regis, England 1724: young boy wakes to find father gone and house flooded)
Kathleen Baldwin, Refuge for Masterminds (Stranje House #3), Tor Teen, Age 13 – 18 (1814: Napoleon has escaped from Elba, Britain is at war & 5 young ladies are being trained as spies)
Tonya Bolden, Crossing Ebenezer Creek, Bloomsbury USA Childrens, Age 13 + (when Mariah & her young brother are freed from slavery, they join Sherman’s march through Georgia. Civil War)
Eden Unger Bowditch, The Strange Round Bird: Or the Poet, the King, and the Mysterious Men in Black, Bancroft, Age 11 – 14 (3rd in trilogy about child-inventors taken from their parents in 1903)
Eric Bower, illus. Agnieszka Grochalska, The Magnificent Flying Baron Estate, Amberjack,
Age 9 – 12 (1891 & the Baron wakes to find his house floating 1000 ft up – series: Bizarre Baron Inventions)
Allan Burnett, illus. Scoular Anderson, William Wallace and All That, Birlinn Ltd, Age 9 – 12 (real life adventure packed with historical facts about Scotland’s legendary hero)
Pei-Yu Chang, Mr. Benjamin’s Suitcase of Secrets, NorthSouth Books, Age 7 – 11
(juvenile fictional picture book based on the real life of Walter Benjamin)
Sophie Cleverly, The Whispers in the Walls (Scarlet & Ivy 2), Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, Age 10 – 14 (Scarlet and Ivy return to Rookwood School for another spooky mystery adventure)
Gwen Cole, Cold Summer, Sky Pony Press, Age 12 + (today he’s a high school dropout with no future, – tomorrow he’s a soldier in World War II)
Steve Cole, Young Bond #9: Red Nemesis, Red Fox, Age 10 + (young adult spy novel series featuring Ian Fleming’s secret agent James at Eaton in 1930s)
Melanie Crowder, Three Pennies, Atheneum Books for Young Readers, Age 8 – 12 (girl in foster care tries to find birthmother – San Francisco, 1906)
Melanie Dickerson, The Noble Servant, Thomas Nelson, Age 13 + (after being betrayed, Lady Magdalen and Steffan, Duke of Wolfberg work together to reclaim their rightful titles)
Penelope Farmer, Charlotte Sometimes, NYRB Kids, Age 12 – 14
(a timeless fantasy tale of time travel back to the year 1918)
Dan Glasl, Trevor Pryce, David Ziebart, Foster Broussard: Demons of the Gold Rush, Outlook Words & Art, Age 13 + (in 1849 a British con-man hopes to find his fortune in the California gold rush)
Kiran Millwood Hargrave, The Island at the End of Everything, Chicken House, Age 10 + (1902, Culion Island, Philippines―once a leper colony. A poetic story about finding your way home)
Sarah Henstra, Mad Miss Mimic (c.2015), Razorbill Canada, Age 12 + (1872-Leonora Somerville, an heiress with a stutter, can only talk normally when mimicking others)
Faith L. Justice, illus. Kayla Gilliam, Tokoyo, The Samurai’s Daughter, Raggedy Moon, Age 8 – 12 (Tokoyo has to save her father using the lessons & skills she learned in martial arts)
Christina Baker Kline, Orphan Train Girl, Harper, Age 8 – 12 (a middle-grade version of the adult novel, tracing the story of two orphan girls―Vivian in early part of 20th-c and Molly in contemporary times)
Caleb Krisp, illus. Barbara Cantini, Bring Me the Head of Ivy Pocket (book 3), Greenwillow Books, Age 8 – 12 (unreliable Ivy Pocket must orchestrate a daring rescue in this funny conclusion to the series)
Monica Kulling, illus. Melissa Castrillón, Mary Anning’s Curiosity, Groundwood, Age 7 – 12 (recreation of Mary’s childhood and her fossil discoveries in early 19th –c Lyme Regis, England)
Stacey Lee, Outrun the Moon, Speak, Age 12 + (San Francisco, 1906 – a Chinese girl gains admittance to an exclusive all-white girls’ school)
Marian Hurd McNeely, illus. William Siegel, The Jumping-Off Place (c.1929), Dover
Publications, Age 10 – 14 (four orphaned children head for South Dakota)
Michael Morpurgo, Why The Whales Came, Egmont UK, Age 8 + (historical adventure set against the backdrop of World War I)
Also by Michael Morpurgo:
The Wreck of the Zanzibar, (historical adventure in the Scilly Isles, 1907)
Friend or Foe, (historical adventure in WW II , London during the Blitz)
Maud Macrory Powell, City of Grit and Gold, Allium Press of Chicago, Age 9 – 12
(Chicago Jewish neighbourhood, 1886: striking workers clash with police)
Randall Platt, The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die, Sky Pony Press, Age 14 + (a WW II story about a girl and her street gang, set in Warsaw, Poland, 1939)
Madeleine Roux, House of Furies (Book 1), HarperTeen, Age 14 + (first in gothic horror series – 17-yr-old Louisa Ditton finds employment with the owner of a mysterious boarding house)
Laura Ruby, York: The Shadow Cipher, Walden Pond Press, Age 8 – 12 (epic alternate-history series about 3 kids who try to solve the greatest mystery of the modern world)
Evelyn Skye, The Crown’s Fate, Balzer + Bray, Age 13 + (fantasy set in Imperial Russia)
Eve Titus, illus. Paul Galdone, Basil and the Lost Colony, Aladdin, Age 5 – 9 (Basil of Baker St is off to locate a colony of mice that has been missing for 6 centuries)
Elizabeth Wein, The Pearl Thief, Disney-Hyperion, Age 13 + (prequel to Code Name Verity, a tale of pearls, love and murder, Perthshire 1938)
Deborah Wiles, The Sixties Trilogy, Book 2: Revolution, Scholastic Press, Age 8 – 12 (1964 in Greenwood, Mississippi & they’re calling it ‘Freedom Summer’)
Rita Williams-Garcia, Clayton Byrd Goes Underground, Amistad, Age 8 – 12 (when aspiring bluesman Clayton loses his grandfather, he must figure out what to do with his anger & sadness)
Jacqueline Wilson, Wave Me Goodbye, Doubleday, Age 8 + (London 1939―ten-yr-old Shirley joins the list of evacuees being sent away because of the Blitz)
Lauren Wolk, Beyond the Bright Sea, Dutton Books for Young Readers, Age 10 + (1925, Massachusetts – 12-yr-ole Crow embarks on a quest to find the missing pieces of her history)
June 2017
Jodi Lynn Anderson, Midnight at the Electric, HarperTeen, Age 14 + (multi-period set in Kansas 2065, Oklahoma 1934 and England 1919)
Erick Berry, (foreword: Betsy Bird), The Winged Girl of Knossos, Paul Dry Books, Age 9 – 12 (full of historical detail about ancient Crete, a courageous girl named Inas)
Dave Butler, The Giant’s Seat (The Extraordinary Journeys of Clockwork Charlie #2), Knopf Books for Young Readers, Age 8 – 12 (second adventure for Charlie, the clockwork boy in grimy Victorian England)
Terry Deary, Featherstone Education, Age 6 + Saxon Tales: The Witch Who Faced the Fire, Saxon Tales: The King Who Threw Away His Throne, Saxon Tales: The Shepherd Who Ate His Sheep, Saxon Tales: The Lord Who Lost His Head
Julie Eshbaugh, Obsidian and Stars, HarperTeen, Age 14 +
(prehistoric fantasy set in the Ice Age. Sequel to Ivory and Bone)
Laura Marx Fitzgerald, The Gallery, Puffin Books, Age 10 + (historical art mystery in 1929)
Adèle Geras, illus. Dominique Gillain, Troy, HMH Books for Young Readers, Age 14 + (struggle between Greece & Troy in which Gods move among mortals and an ancient city is brought to life)
Julia Golding, The Diamond of Drury Lane, Egmont/Modern Classics, Age 12 + (orphaned ‘Cat’ Royal knows everything about the Royal Theatre and its 18th –c English surroundings)
A.J. Hartley, Firebrand (Steeplejack 2), Tor Teen, Age 13 – 18
(sequel returns to the 19th –century South African-inspired world)
Eleanor Herman, Reign of Serpents (Blood of Gods and Royals 3), Harlequin TEEN,
Age 14 + (historical fantasy set during the reign of Alexander the Great)
Judith Kerr, Essential Modern Classics – When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, HarperCollinsChildren’sBoooks, Age 12 + (Jewish family flees Germany at start of WW II)
Mackenzi Lee, The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, Katherine Tegen Books, Age 13 + (tale of two friends, on Grand Tour of 18th –c Europe, who stumble upon a magical artifact)
Lois Lowry, The Silent Boy, HMH Books for Young Readers, Age 12 +
(coming-of-age of a doctor’s daughter, set in early 20th –c farming community)
Kate Messner, illus. Kelley McMorris, Ranger in Time #6: Escape from the Great Earthquake, Scholastic Press, Age 7 – 10 (Ranger helps a Chinese servant girl to flee a collapsing mission house)
Michael Morpurgo, Arthur, High King of Britain, Egmont UK, Age 8 – 12 (the great warrior king)
Also in series:
My Friend Walter (Sir Walter Raleigh)
The Sleeping Sword, (a new take on King Arthur’s legend)
Twist of Famine (Irish potato famine)
Waiting for Anya (WWII adventure)
Rick Revelle, Algonquin Sunset : An Algonquin Quest Novel 2, Dundurn, Age 12 – 15 (follow up to Algonquin Spring and set twelve years later)
Adam Shankman, Laura L. Sullivan, Murder Among the Stars, Atheneum Books for Young Readers, Age 14 + (whodunit in the glitzy aura of the Golden Age of Hollywood – sequel to Girl About Town)
Judith Silverthorne, Ghosts in the Garden, Coteau Books, Age 9 – 12 (sequel to The Ghosts of Government House: time-slip supernatural adventure-mystery)
Michael P. Spradlin, Prisoner of War: A Novel of World War II, Scholastic Press, Age 12 +
(he lied about his age; now he’ll have to lie about everything else)
Simone van der Vlugt (trans. Jenny Watson), Midnight Blue, Harper UK, Age 14 + (Holland, 1654; Catrin’s new life gives her a chance to explore her talent for painting)
Kiersten White, Now I Rise, Delacorte Press, Age 12 + (sequel to And I Darken – a medieval fantasy adventure set in the 15th –c Ottoman Empire)
July 2017
Emily Arnold-McCully, A Promising Life: A Novel of Coming of Age with America, Arthur A. Levine Books, Age 12 + (life of Sacagawea’s son)
Janine Beacham, Rubies and Runaways (Rose Raventhorpe Investigates, Book 2), Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, Age 10 + (adventure mystery in Victorian England)
Robert Beatty, Serafina and the Splintered Heart (Book 3), Disney Hyperion, Age 8 + (Seraphina confronts the darkest threat she’s ever faced at the Vanderbilt Estate)
Bibi Belford, Crossing the Line, Sky Pony Press, Age 10 – 14
(a story set around the 1919 Chicago race riots)
Jan Burchett & Sara Vogler, Spy Master 3 & 4: Deadly Storm and Fatal Voyage, Orion, Age 8 + (young scribe Jack & seamstress Cat are amateur sleuths in mid 1530s)
Kara Connolly, No Good Deed, Delacorte Press, Age 14 + (re-imagining of the legend of Robin Hood when a modern girl finds herself in the middle of a medieval mess)
Susan Dennard, Something Strange and Deadly (c2012), HarperTeen, Age 14 +
(1876 Philadelphia – paranormal historical fantasy)
Also:
A Darkness Strange and Lovely (c2013), (Something Strange and Deadly 2)
Strange and Ever After (c2014) , (Something Strange and Deadly 3)
Alan Gratz, Refugee, Scholastic Press, Age 9 – 12 (a multi-period adventure about three children who go on harrowing journeys in search of refuge)
S. E. Grove, The Crimson Skew (Mapmakers Trilogy #3), Puffin Books, Age 10 + (1890s Boston; continues from where The Golden Specific left off)
Mary Downing Hahn, One for Sorrow: A Ghost Story, HMH Books for Young Readers,
Age 10 – 12 (a girl is haunted by a vengeful ghost during the influenza epidemic of 1918)
Andrew Lane, Dawn of Spies, Adaptive Books, Age 12 – 17 (rescued from a deserted island, 17-yr-old Robinson Crusoe and Friday find themselves in late 1600s London)
Hope Larson, illus. Rebecca Mock, Compass South (Four Points 1), Farrar, Straus and Giroux BYR, Age 10 – 12 (graphic novel—1860s NYC; 2 children are pursued by pirates)
Hope Larson, illus. Rebecca Mock, Knife’s Edge (Four Points 2), Farrar, Straus and Giroux BYR, Age 10 – 12 (graphic novel set in 1860s; sequel to Compass South)
Caroline Lawrence, Death in the Arena: Book 3: The Roman Quests, Orion Children’s, Age 7 – 11 (11-yr-old Ursula, a Druid in the woods of Britannia, is sent on a quest to find a lost boy)
Lisa Maxwell, The Last Magician, Simon Pulse, Age 14 + (in modern day NYC there’s a secret world of magic and deception, and a girl who must travel back to 1901 to find a mysterious book that could save her future)
Michael Morpurgo, illus. Briony May Smith, The Giant’s Necklace, Walker UK, Age 7 + (a ghost story which revisits Cornwall’s industrial past)
D. J. Steinberg, illus. Robert Neubecker, King Louie’s Shoes, Beach Lane Books,
Age 4 – 8 (the true story of the short King Louis XIV and his famous high-heeled shoes)
August 2017
Karen Bass, Two Times a Traitor, Pajama Press, Age 9 – 12 (reluctantly touring Halifax with his family, 12-yr-old Laz stumbles through a time tunnel into a 1745 war zone)
Bibi Bedford, Crossing the Line, Sky Pony Press, Age 8 – 12 (Billy and his pal Foster, are pretty sure colour doesn’t matter but they discover that is does in the Red Summer of 1919, Chicago)
Michelle Bisson, illus. El Primo Ramon, Hedy’s Journey : The True Story of a Hungarian Girl Fleeing the Holocaust, Capstone Press, Age 9 – 12 (1941 – Hedy and her Jewish family flee from the Nazis in Hungary)
Jeffrey Brown, Lucy & Andy Neanderthal 2: The Stone Cold Age, Crown Books for Young Readers, Age 8 – 12 (comic graphic novel blends history fact vs fiction & silly cave-man myths)
Elijah Brubaker, The Story of Jezebel, Uncivilized Books, Age 14 + (a thoroughly modern & humorous take on the Old Testament tale of paganism, murder and sex)
Emma Carroll, Letters from the Lighthouse, Faber & Faber, Age 9 – 12 (February 1941 – 12-yr-old Olive Bradshaw & her little brother are evacuated to a Devon coast lighthouse)
Margarita Engle, Lion Island: Cuba’s Warrior of Words, Atheneum, Age 10 + (19th-c setting: stories in verse about Antonio Chuffat, a young man of African, Chinese & Cuban descent who became a champion for civil rights)
Cary Fagan, Mort Ziff Is Not Dead, Puffin Canada, Age 8 – 12 (humorous coming-of-age set in 1960s Florida)
Brian Gallagher, Pawns: Ireland’s War of Independence, O’Brien Press, Age 9 + (with the war raging, three friends face difficult decisions)
Jacqueline Hechtkopf, Drop By Drop : A Story of Rabbi Akiva, Kar-Ben, Age 5 – 8 (is shepherd Akiva too old to be a scholar or can he follow the example of water in a nearby brook?)
Colleen Houck, Reunited (Reawakened Book 3), Delacorte Press, Age 14 + (paranormal romantic adventure woven around Egyptian mythology)
Lydia Kang, A Beautiful Poison, Lake Union Publishing, Age 13 + (murder-mystery – New York, just after Gilded Age when mysterious deaths can be mistaken for Spanish flu)
Elizabeth Kiem, Orphan, Agent, Prima, Pawn, Soho Teen, Age 14 + (1958, Moscow – historical thriller – KGB want to enlist 16-year-old dancer, Svetlana, as a psychic spy against the West)
Kate Klimo, Tiny Tim (Dog Diaries), Random House Books for Young Readers, Age 7 – 10 (gifted to Dickens during a book tour, small, shaggy Timber became the great writer’s constant companion)
Matthew Landis, The League of American Traitors, Sky Pony Press, Age 14 + (historical thriller in which descendants of the heroes and traitors of the Revolution still duel to the death for the sake of their honor)
Andrew Lane, Day of Ice, Adaptive Books, Age 12 + (2nd in series after Dawn of Spies thrusts a young Robinson Crusoe into a 1600s world of espionage, intrigue and peril)
Andrew Larsen, illus. Katty Maurey, The Man Who Loved Libraries: The Story of Andrew Carnegie, Age 5 – 8 (children’s picture book biography)
Michael Morpurgo, King of the Cloud Forest, Egmont UK, Age 8 – 12 (Ashley & Uncle Sung journey across the Himalayas after the Japanese invade China)
Also by Michael Morpurgo: Escape from Shangri-La (Dunkirk, WWII)
Mary Pope Osborne, illus. AG Ford, A Big Day for Baseball, Random House Bks for YR,
Age 6 – 9 (Magic Treehouse takes readers to meet Jackie Robinson in Brooklyn, 1947)
Jamie Rhodes, A Castle in England, Nobrow, Age 12 + (using history of 14th-c castle as starting point, 5 short stories take place over different eras of the castle’s past–Medieval, Elizabethan, Georgian, Victorian, and Edwardian – graphic format)
William Ritter, The Dire King : A Jackaby Novel, Algonquin Young Readers, Age 14 + (trilogy conclusion sends eccentric detective into a war between magical worlds)
Megan Rix, Winston and the Marmalade Cat, Penguin, Age 6 – 8 (a new adventure history series featuring animals)
Lauren Tarshis, I Survived the American Revolution, 1776 (#15), Scholastic Paperbacks,
Age 7 – 10 (Nate is heading to NYC to find his father but gets trapped in a gunfight between American & British troops)
Janet B. Taylor, Sparks of Light, HMH Books for Young Readers, Age 14 + (time- travel-adventure blend of mystery, sci-fi & romance. Gilded Age, 1895 NYC. Sequel to Into the Dim)
John Owen Theobald, What the Raven Brings, Head of Zeus, Age 12 + (after being unable to follow her father as the Tower Ravenmaster, Ann bluffs her way into the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force)
Gareth Ward, The Traitor and the Thief, Walker Australia, Age 12 + (a thief , a spy and a steampunk showdown at Traitor’s Gate)
Cat Winters, The Steep and Thorny Way, Amulet, Age 13 + (1920s Oregon – reimagining of Hamlet tells of a murder & the mighty power of acceptance in a state gone rotten)
Maryrose Wood, illus. Eliza Wheeler, The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book VI : The Long-Lost Home, Balzer + Bray, Age 8 – 12 (final book in humorous Victorian mystery series)
Jacqueline Woodson, illus. James Ransome, This Is the Rope: A Story from the Great Migration, Puffin Books, Age 5 – 8 (a rope frames the family story as we follow them on their journey north)
Dori Jones Yang, The Forbidden Temptation of Baseball, Sparkpress, Age 8 – 12 (12-yr-old Leo is among a group of 120 boys sent to New England in 1870s, by the Emperor of China, as part of a Chinese educational mission)
September 2017
Higasa Akai, The Royal Tutor, Vol 3, Yen Press, Age 13 + (Manga graphics – historical fiction)
Alex Alice, Castle in the Stars: The Space Race of 1869, First Second, Age 10 – 14 (graphic format historical fantasy imagines ‘space race’ in Victorian era)
Jeannine Atkins, Finding Wonders: Three Girls Who Changed Science, Atheneum, Age 10 + (novel in verse imagines the lives of Maria Merian – artist 1647-1717, Mary Anning – fossil collector 1799-1847 and Maria Mitchell – astronomer 1818-1889)
Ethel Barker, The Andersens of Eden: The Story of an Iowa Family During WWII, Ice Cube Press, Age 14 + (life changes overnight when the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor. Coming-of-age beginning Dec 1941)
Katy Beebe, illus. Sally Wern Comport, Nile Crossing, Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, Age 5 – 9 (ancient Egypt – Khepri replaces his fishing pole with the pens of a scribe)
Katherine Blanc, illus. Jeffrey Ebbeler, Melvin the Mouth, Charlesbridge, Age 4 – 8 (first-person fiction-based-in-reality story of Mel Blanc, the voice behind Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and more)
Megan E. Bryant, Glow, Albert Whitman, Age 12 + (a find in a thrift store reveals the haunting true story of the Radium Girls)
Rae Carson, illus. John Hendrix, Like a River Glorious, Greenwillow Books, Age 13 + (fantasy adventure in an alternate Gold-rush era setting)
Nancy J. Cavanaugh, Elsie Mae Has Something to Say, Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, Age 8 – 12 (Elsie Mae is determined to save her beloved Okefenokee Swamp)
Tim Champlin, Tom and Huck’s Howling Adventure, Five Star, Age 14 + (a modern 13-yr-old falls into a coma & wakes on an island in Mississippi River where he is found by Tom Sawyer & Huck Finn)
Sophie Cleverly, Scarlet and Ivy (4) – The Lights Under the Lake, HarperCollins ChildrensBooks, Age 9 – 13 (more adventures at the Rookwood Boarding School)
Martha Deeringer, Elephant Dreams, Fire & Ice, Age 14 + (1800s NYC & Texas – desperate to escape her squalid life, 16-yr-old Fiona journeys west aboard an Orphan Train)
Christopher Edge, The Penelope Tredwell Mysteries Books 1-3, Albert Whitman, Age 9 – 12 (Penelope is the feisty 13-year-old orphan heiress of Victorian Britain’s bestselling magazine, the Penny Dreadful)
L.M. Elliott, Suspect Red, Disney-Hyperion, Age 10 – 14 (U.S. 1953 – Cold War standoff between communism & democracy leads to rise of Senator Joe McCarthy & his zealots)
Pauline Francis, ReadZone Books, Age 9 – 11
Great Expectations, Pride & Prejudice, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Wuthering Heights
Michael Garland, Daddy Played the Blues, Tilbury House, Age 5 – 8 (a family join the Great Migration from impoverished Deep South to Chicago where there is work to be had)
McKelle George, Speak Easy, Speak Love, Greenwillow Books, Age 13 + (six teenagers’ lives intertwine one summer during the glamorous 1920s Prohibition era)
Stacy Gregg, The Diamond Horse, HarperCollinsChildren’sBooks, Age 9 + (a frozen palace, a priceless secret – an epic Russian adventure)
Frances Hardinge, The Lie Tree, Amulet, Age 13 + (in pursuit of justice and revenge, Faith discovers a strange tree in her father’s possessions; a tree which only bears fruit when she whispers a lie to it)
Kelly Jones, Murder, Magic and What We Wore, Knopf Children’s, Age 9 – 12 (Regency-era romp – a young lady of quality, fallen on hard times, determines to become a spy)
Trilby Kent, Stones For My Father, Tundra, Age 10 + (Boer War, South Africa – a girl’s struggle to survive when she & her family are interned in British concentration camp)
Angela Keoghan, illus. Chris Sam Lam, Inspector Brunswick: The Case of the Missing Eyebrow, Tate, Age 5 + (first in new Victorian-era detective stories for young readers)
Michael Kusugak, illus. Vladyana Krykorka, Baseball Bats for Christmas, Age 5 – 8 (1955: Arvaarluk & his friends watch as Rocky Parsons lands his plane in Repulse Bay carrying something they have never seen before)
Tanya Lloyd Kyi, illus. Celia Krampien, Shadow Warrior : Based on the true story of a fearless ninja and her network of female spies, Annick, Age 8 – 12 (setting – 1588)
Julie Leung, illus. Lindsey Carr, Mice of the Round Table #1: A Tail of Camelot, HarperCollins, Age 8 – 12 (a tale of small heroes accomplishing big things)
Carmela A. Martino, Playing By Heart, Vinspire Publishing, Age 12 + (18th-c Milan: romance inspired by composer Maria Teresa Agnesi and linguist & mathematician Maria Gaetana Agnesi)
T. E. McMorrow, illus. James Ransome, The Nutcracker in Harlem, HarperCollins, Age 4 – 8
(reinvention of the Nutcracker story set in NYC at the heart of the Harlem Renaissance)
Jeannie Mobley, Bobby Lee Claremont and the Criminal Element, Holiday House, Age 8 – 12 (1923 ― Jazz-Age murder mystery set aboard a Chicago-bound train)
Trinka Hakes Noble, Rettie and the Ragamuffin Parade, Sleeping Bear, Age 4 – 8 (1918 NYC – while her mother is sick with consumption, 9-yr-old Rettie cleans & cooks for her family)
Edgar Allan Poe, adap. Stacy King, illus. various, The Stories of Edgar Allen Poe : Manga Classics, UDON Ent, Age 12 – 18 (graphic novel format)
Mara Rockliff, illus. Iacopo Bruno, Mesmerized, Candlewick, Age 6 + (celebrates beloved American Benjamin Franklin in a fresh approach to a historical account set in Paris)
R.M. Romero, The Dollmaker of Krakow, Delacorte Bks for YR, Age 8 – 12 (a fusion of fairy tales, folklore and WWII history illustrates the power of love & the inherent will to survive)
Kevin Sands, The Assassin’s Curse (Blackthorn Key 3), Aladdin, Age 10 – 14 (Christopher & friends are ordered to Paris to investigate a centuries-old curse on the French throne)
J. Scott Savage, Embers of Destruction (Mysteries of Cove 3), Shadow Mountain, Age 8 – 11, (3rd in trilogy – steampunk fantasy)
Adam Shaughnessy, The Unbelievable FIB 2: Over the Underworld, Algonquin Young Readers, Age 8 + (friends Abe and Pru race to stop events, foretold in Norse myth, which lead to Ragnarök – the final battle)
Philip Steele, Trailblazers: Tomb Raider, Silver Dolphin, Age 7 + (adventure about treasure hunters & explorers who paved way for discoveries of ancient civilisations)
Jonathan Stroud, Lockwood & Co., Book Four The Creeping Shadow, Disney-Hyperion,
Age 8 – 12 (3 psychic investigators face supernatural forces in alternate London)
Jonathan Stroud, Lockwood & Co., Book Five The Empty Grave, Disney-Hyperion,
Age 8 – 12 (3 psychic investigators face supernatural forces in alternate London)
Mark Twain, adapt. Crystal S. Chan, illus. Kuma Chan, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn : Manga Classics, UDON Ent, Age 12 + (graphic format of original classic)
Catherynne M. Valente, illus. Rebecca Green, The Glass Town Game, Margaret K. McElderry, Age 10 + (in a small Yorkshire parsonage, Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne Brontë have invented a game where their soldiers fight Napoleon)
Cat Winters, Odd & True, Amulet, Age 12 + (two sisters with a dark past face their demons in this paranormal historical fiction, set in 1909)
Alex Woolf, Assassin’s Code: Book 1 (The Shakespeare Plot), Scribo, Age 7 + (journey back to Elizabethan London where schemers lurk and deadly traps await)
Alex Woolf, Call of the Phoenix (Iron Sky 2), Scribo, Age 11 + (alternative steampunk 19th –c England filled with giant airships, aerial carriages and floating cities)
October 2017
Avi, The Player King, Atheneum/Richard Jackson, Age 8 – 12 (England, 1486. King Henry VII has snatched the English Crown, while young Prince Edward, who has a truer claim, has apparently disappeared)
Armand Baltazar, Timeless #1: Diego and the Rangers of the Vastlantic, Katherine Tegen Books, Age 8 – 12 (fantasy adventure trilogy in which a ‘Time Collision’ has created an alternate world full of people and things from all eras and cultures)
Rae Carson, Into the Bright Unknown (Gold Seer 3), Greenwillow Books, Age 12 +
(a distinctive heroine and a unique interpretation of the Gold Rush period)
Paul Dowswell, Wolf Children, Bloomsbury Childrens, Age 12 + (story of endurance and courage in bombed-out Berlin, 1945, at end of WWII)
Andy Elkerton, Oolaf the Hero (Viking Adventures) , Franklin Watts, Age 6 – 8
(bold and daring adventures of Oolaf in the world of Vikings)
Margarita Engle, illus. Raul Colón, Miguel’s Brave Knight : Young Miguel de Cervantes and His Dream of Don Quixote, Peachtree, Age 8 – 12 (Miguel finds refuge from a difficult childhood by imagining the adventures of a brave knight)
Sherry D. Ficklin, The Canary Club, Crimson Tree, Age 14 + (a story of star-crossed lovers in gritty prohibition-era New York city)
Alan Garner, The Owl Service, HarperCollinsChildren’sBooks, Ages 9 – 11 (multi-period in which 3 children are drawn into a replay of a tragic ancient Welsh legend)
Mary Downing Hahn, Hear the Wind Blow, HMH Books for Young Readers, Age 10 – 12 (Haswell’s search for his brother is a quest into manhood in last days of the Civil War)
Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows, Amulet, Age 13 + (a dark YA historical fantasy set in the early part of the English Civil War)
Alison Hart, illus. Paul Bachem, Anna’s Blizzard, Peachtree, Age 7 – 10 (1888 Nebraska – a story of courage & strength with details about 19th-c prairie life)
Dianne Hofmeyr, illus. Jane Ray, The Glassmaker’s Daughter, Frances Lincoln Children’s,
Age 7 – 10 (an illustrated fable set in sixteenth-century Venice)
Antonio Iturbe, (trans. Lilit Thwaites), The Librarian of Auschwitz, Henry Holt and Co. (BYR),
Age 13 – 19 (based on real-life experience of Dita Kraus who tried to keep the magic of books alive during the Holocaust)
Gwen C. Katz, Among the Red Stars, HarperTeen, Age 13 + (historical suspense inspired by true story of an all-female bomber unit in Russia during WWII)
Nikki Katz, The Midnight Dance, Swoon Reads, Age 13 – 18 (a ballerina falls in love with the kitchen boy at a mysterious boarding school)
Judith Kerr, Bombs on Aunt Dainty, HarperCollinsChildren’sBooks, Age 9 – 11 (2nd in trilogy in Blitz-wracked London – previously published as The Other Way Round)
Thanhha Lai, Inside Out and Back Again (c.2011), HarperCollins, Age 8 – 12 (Harper Classic about the fall of Saigon and one girl’s year of change and grief)
Julie Lawson, A Blinding Light, Nimbus, Age 8 – 12 (story of the Halifax Explosion and its aftermath, exploring concepts of guilt and blame & the divide between rich and poor, locals and immigrants)
Emmy Laybourne, Berserker, Feiwel & Friends, Age 13 – 18
(historical paranormal romance based on an ancestral Viking curse)
Peter Lerangis, Max Tilt: Fire the Depths, HarperCollins, Age 8 – 12 (Max finds his great-great-great-grandfather, Jules Verne’s long-lost manuscript)
Julie Leung, Mice of the Round Table #2: Voyage to Avalon, HarperCollins, Age 8 – 12 (second installment wherein small heroes accomplish big things)
Kerri Maniscalco, Hunting Prince Dracula, Little, Brown, Age 14 + (sequel to Stalking Jack the Ripper―bizarre murders are discovered in the castle of Prince Vlad the Impaler, aka Dracula)
Bryan Methods, The Shanghai Incident (Master Diplexito and Mr. Scant), Carolrhoda Books,
Age 10 – 14 (Mr. Scant, Oliver, and their allies are the only hope of stopping a plot against China’s child emperor)
William Meyer, Horace j. Edwards and the Time Keepers 2: The Search for the Lost Prophecy, Sleeping Bear, Age 9 + (Horace, along with his friends Anna and Milton, travels back in time to 1920s Detroit. Sequel to The Secret of the Scarab Beetle)
Gary Northfield, Julius Zebra: Entangled with the Egyptians! (Book 3), Walker UK, Age 7 + (a humorous series with entertaining Roman and Egyptian historical facts)
Katherine Paterson, My Bridadista Year, Candlewick, Age 10 – 14 (a young Cuban teenager volunteers for Fidel Castro’s national literacy campaign to teach others how to read)
Ridley Pearson, Lock and Key: The Downward Spiral, HarperCollins, Age 8 – 12 (2nd in trilogy about the origins of the animosity between Homes and Moriarty)
Patricia Polacco, Remembering Vera, Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman, Age 4 – 8 (1962 – Vera becomes a dog-hero and the beloved mascot of the San Francisco Coast Guard)
James Preller, The Courage Test, Square Fish, Age 9 – 12 (a father-and-son journey along the Lewis & Clark trail is a journey into the soul of America’s past)
Caroline Starr Rose, illus. Joe Lillington, Ride On, Will Cody! : A Legend of the Pony Express, Albert Whitman, Age 5 – 7 (story told in lyrical verse)
Faith Shropshire, illus. Izzy Bean, The Innkeeper’s Daughter, Clovercroft, Age 8 + (story of night Jesus was born, told from Innkeeper’s daughter’s perspective: Inspirational)
John Smelcer, Kiska, Leapfrog, Age 14 + (Kiska’s home in Aleutian Islands is a peaceful paradise until Japan invades in 1942. Informed by true events, story is of teenage girl who steps up when her people need a hero)
Lucy Strange, The Secret of Nightingale Wood, The Chicken House, Age 8 – 12 (story of friendship, fairy tales and family secrets set in 1919)
Brenna Thummier & Mariah Marsden (illus.), Kendra Phipps & Erika Kuster (edit), Anne of Green Gables: A Graphic Novel, Andrews McMeel Publishing, Age 7 – 12
Ruth Vander Zee, illus. Floyd Cooper, Mississippi Morning, Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, Age 7 – 12 (story of one boy’s loss of naiveté during the Great Depression – inspirational)
Debby Waldman, Miriam’s Secret, Orca, Age 9 – 13 (1930 upstate NY – story of loneliness, friendship and having courage to do the right thing)
Steve Watkins, Sink or Swim: A Novel of WWII, Scholastic Press, Age 8 – 12 (inspired by the courageous true story of the youngest boy to serve in WWII)
Jacqueline Wilson, illus. Nick Sharratt, Hetty Feather’s Christmas, Doubleday, Age 8 – 12 (an unexpected gift leads to trouble for Hetty on Christmas Day at the Foundling Hospital)
November 2017
Alane Adams, The Santa Thief, Sparkpress, Age 4 – 8 (tale of boyhood for young readers, set in 1920s Pennsylvania)
Harriet Hyman Alonso, illus. Elizabeth Zunon, Martha and the Slave Catchers, Triangle Square, Age 8 – 12 (combining fiction & fact ―story of courage, hope & self-discovery in aftermath of Fugitive Slave Law, 1850)
Nicholas Bowling, Witchborn, Chickenhouse, Age 13 + (a dark, twisty tale through Elizabethan England exploring history through a fantasy lens)
Erin Bowman, Retribution Rails, HMH Books for Young Readers, Age 14 + (now the West is wilder than ever. Sequel to Vengeance Road)
Amy Brashear, No Saints in Kansas, Soho Teen, Age 14 + (1959 – a reimagining of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood and the brutal murders that inspired it)
Sherryl Clark, The Rose Stories : 4 Books in One, Penguin Random House Australia,
Age 8 – 12 (Rose is an independent, adventurous and courageous girl in 1900, Melbourne)
Kent Davis, A Riddle in Ruby #3: The Great Unravel, Greenwillow Books, Age 8 – 12
(in an alternate Colonial America a young thief must save the city from evil)
Dorothy Canfield Fisher, illus. Kimberly Bulcken Root, Understood Betsy (c1917), Square Fish, Age 9 – 12 (a young girl goes to live with distant relatives on a farm in wild Vermont)
Patricia Lyfoung, Scarlet Rose #1, Charmz, Age 10 – 14 (new graphic series – humorous historical adventure with a female lead)
Michael Morpurgo, illus. Michael Foreman, Lucky Button, Walker, Age 9 + (lonely boy cares for his sick mother, until a mysterious encounter reveals life in Foundling Hospital in the 18th-c)
G. Neri, Tru & Nelle: A Christmas Tale, HMH Books for Young Readers, Age 10 – 12 (based on real-life friendship of Truman Capote and Harper Lee)
Mike Rich, Skavenger’s Hunt, Inkshares, Age 9 – 13 (young Henry Babbitt finds himself magically transported back to 1885- New York, Mississippi & old Paris settings)
Marco Tabilio, Marco Polo: Dangers and Visions, Lerner/Walker Australia, Age 14 + (coming-of-age of Marco Polo told in graphic cartoon format)
Gabrielle Wang, The Poppy Stories : 4 Books in One, Penguin Random House Australia,
Age 8 – 12 (1864: disguised as a boy Poppy has escaped from the aboriginal mission to find her brother who ran away to pan for gold)
Marcia Williams, Three Cheers for Women, Walker, Age 7 + (celebration of inspirational women from all over the world and throughout history, told in comic-strip style)
Barry Wolverton, The Dragon’s Gate (Chronicles of the Black Tulip, vol 2), Walden Pond Press, Age 8 – 12 (2nd installment of alternate history series)
December 2017
Sophie Cleverly, Scarlet and Ivy (5) – The Curse in the Candlelight, HarperCollins ChildrensBooks, Age 9 – 13 (more adventures at the Rookwood Boarding School)
Matthew J. Kirby, Fate of the Gods (Last Descendants: An Assassin’s Creed Novel Series #3), Scholastic, Age 12 + (conclusion of trilogy―thought-provoking blend of science, history and action-adventure)
Susanna Lancaster, The Growing Rock, Harvard Square Editions, Age 14 + (family drama set in 1937 during the Great Depression)
Mary Pope Osborne, illus. Sal Murdocca, Balto of the Blue Dawn, Random House Books for YR, Age 7 – 10 (Alaska 1925 – meet Balto, destined to save victims of the diphtheria epidemic)
Judy Young, illus. Jordi Solano, Hu Wan and the Sleeping Dragon, Sleeping Bear,
Age 6 – 10 (Beijing, 1572; Hu Wan helps his grandfather to grow special gourds)
Franklin Watts, The Children of Willesden Lane, Franklin Watts, Age 12 + (inspirational story of Lisa Jura’s escape from Nazi-controlled Austria)
Barry Wolverton, The Sea of the Dead (Chronicles of the Black Tulip, vol 3), Walden Pond Press, Age 8 – 12 (final installment of alternate history series)