World History

CRISPIN: THE CROSS OF LEAD
by Avi
Falsely accused of theft and murder, an orphaned peasant boy in fourteenth-century England flees his village and meets a larger-than-life juggler who holds a dangerous secret.

THE TRUE CONFESSIONS OF CHARLOTTE DOYLE
by Avi
As the only passenger, and the only female, on a transatlantic voyage in 1832, thirteen-year-old Charlotte finds herself caught between a murderous captain and a mutinous crew.

PRIMAVERA
by Mary Jane Beaufrand
Growing up in Renaissance Italy, Flora sees her family's fortunes ebb, but encounters with the artist Botticelli and the guidance of her nurse teach her to look past the material world to the beauty already in her life.

SOS TITANIC
by Eve Bunting
Fifteen-year-old Barry O'Neill, traveling from Ireland to America on the maiden voyage of the Titanic, finds his life endangered when the ship hits an iceberg and begins to sink.

THE BOOK OF THE LION
by Michael Cadnum
In twelfth-century England, after his master, a maker of coins for the king, is brutally punished for alleged cheating, seventeen-year-old Edmund finds himself traveling to the Holy Land as squire to a knight crusader on his way to join the forces of Richard Lionheart.

CATHERINE, CALLED BIRDY
by Karen Cushman
The thirteen-year-old daughter of an English country knight keeps a journal in which she records the events of her life, particularly her longing for adventures beyond the usual role of women and her efforts to avoid being married off.

THE MIDWIFE’S APPRENTICE
by Karen Cushman
In medieval England, a nameless, homeless girl is taken in by a sharp-tempered midwife, and in spite of obstacles and hardship, eventually gains the three things she most wants: a full belly, a contented heart, and a place in this world.

HINDENBURG, 1937
by Cameron Dokey
To escape the increasing brutality of the Nazi regime in 1937 Germany, Anna Becker plans to sneak aboard the Hindenburg just before its inaugural voyage. Aided by a handsome young stranger named Eric, Anna manages to avoid notice-until she spots Karl, the man Anna once dreamed of marrying.

BOG CHILD
by Siobhan Dowd
In 1981, the height of Ireland's "Troubles," eighteen-year-old Fergus is distracted from his upcoming A-level exams by his imprisoned brother's hunger strike, the stress of being a courier for Sinn Fein, and dreams of a murdered girl whose body he discovered in a bog.

THE MUSICIAN'S DAUGHTER
by Susanne Dunlap
In eighteenth-century Vienna, Austria, fifteen-year-old Theresa seeks a way to help her mother and brother financially while investigating the murder of her father, a renowned violinist in Haydn's orchestra at the court of Prince Esterhazy, after his body is found near a gypsy camp.

TROY
by Adele Geras
For ten years, from the heights of Mount Olympus, the gods kept watch on the Siege of Troy. But Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, is bored with the endless, dreary war and, aided by Eros's arrow, sends two sisters down a bloody path to an awful truth: In the fury of war, love strikes the deadliest blows.

SOLDIER BOYS
by Dean Hughes
Two boys, one German and one American, are eager to join their respective armies during World War II, and their paths cross at the Battle of the Bulge.

THE RAGING QUIET
by Sherryl Jordan
Suspicious of sixteen-year-old Marnie, a newcomer to their village, the residents accuse her of witchcraft when she discovers that the village madman is not crazy but deaf and she begins to communicate with him through hand gestures.

PHARAOH’S DAUGHTER
by Julius Lester
A fictionalized account of a Biblical story in which an Egyptian princess rescues a Hebrew infant who becomes a prophet of his people while his sister finds her true self as a priestess to the Egyptian gods.

JUMP SHIP TO FREEDOM
by James Lincoln and Christopher Collier
In 1787 a fourteen-year-old slave, anxious to buy freedom for himself and his mother, escapes from his dishonest master and tries to find help in cashing the soldier's notes received by his father for fighting in the Revolution.

THE PIRATE’S SON
by Geraldine McCaughrean
Left penniless in eighteenth century England, fourteen-year-old Nathan Gull and his mousy sister Maud accompany Tamo, the son of a notorious pirate, to his homeland of Madagascar where they are all changed by their encounter with Tamo's dangerous past.

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.

TIES THAT BIND, TIES THAT BREAK
by Lensey Namioka
Set in the pivotal period in Chinese history when the empire fell and the Republic of China was created, this moving story tells of Ailin, a young girl who refuses to follow the tradition of having her feet bound-and pays the price.

HUSH: AN IRISH PRINCESS' TALE
by Donna Jo Napoli
Fifteen-year-old Melkorka, an Irish princess, is kidnapped by Russian slave traders and not only learns how to survive but to challenge some of the brutality of her captors, who are fascinated by her apparent muteness and the possibility that she is enchanted.

BREATH
by Donna Jo Napoli
Elaborates on the tale of "The Pied Piper," told from the point of view of a boy who is too ill to keep up when a piper spirits away the healthy children of a plague-ridden town after being cheated out of full payment for ridding Hameln of rats.

DAUGHTER OF VENICE
by Donna Jo Napoli
Frustrated with the restrictions her gender imposes on her life, fourteen-year-old Donata, disguised as a boy, sneaks out of her noble family's house to roam the streets of late sixteenth-century Venice and then must confront the repercussions of her actions.

AMANDA/MIRANDA
by Richard Peck
Miranda assumes the identity of her mistress, Amanda, a girl to whom she bears a striking resemblance, after the sinking of the Titanic.

THE RUBY IN THE SMOKE
by Philip Pullman
In nineteenth-century London, sixteen-year-old Sally, a recent orphan, becomes involved in a deadly search for a mysterious ruby.

WITCH CHILD
by Celia Rees
Mary's grandmother is executed for witchcraft, and Mary is forced to leave her home to avoid the same fate. At first she flees to the English countryside, but when the atmosphere of superstition and suspicion becomes all consuming she leaves on a boat for America in the hope that she can start over and forget her past.

MILKWEED
by Jerry Spinelli
In Warsaw in 1939, a boy wanders the streets and survives by stealing what food he can. He eventually adopts a name, Misha, and a family, that of his friend Janina Milgrom. When the Milgroms are forced to move into the newly created ghetto, Misha cheerfully accompanies them. By the time trains come to take the ghetto's residents away, Misha realizes what many adults do not-that the passengers won't be going to the resettlement villages at the journey's end.

THE CAY
by Theodore Taylor
When the freighter on which they are traveling is torpedoed by a German submarine during World War II, a twelve-year-old white boy, blinded by a blow on the head, and an old West Indian man are stranded on a small desert island in the Caribbean where the boy acquires a new kind of vision, courage, and love from his old companion.

THE BOMB
by Theodore Taylor
In 1945, when the Americans liberate the Bikini Atoll from the Japanese, fourteen-year-old Sorry Rinamu does not realize that the next year he will lead a desperate effort to save his island home from a much more deadly threat.

THE SERPENT’S CHILDREN
by Laurence Yep
In nineteenth-century China, a young girl struggles to protect her family from the threat of bandits, famine, and an ideological conflict between her father and brother.