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Middle Grade Historical Fiction -- 4th grade and up

For my fellow history buffs or those simply seeking to better understand past events, here is a list for you! This list covers a little bit of everything, from the Brazero movement during the 1930s to war in the Middle East. History is today -- it has shaped us and influenced us into what we are.

Alameda County Library

20 items

  • Also available in eBook. Life for the Blaisdell family in 1840s Providence, Rhode Island, is nice and normal, but this state of affairs chafes at 13-year-old Victoria (Tory), who yearns for adventure. She’s frustrated by the lack of…
    BookSomerville, Massachusetts : Candlewick Press, 2020 — J AVI
  • In 1930, Esperanza lives a privileged life on a ranch in Aguascalientes, Mexico. But when her father dies, the post-Revolutionary culture and politics force her to leave with her mother for California. Now they are indebted to the family…
    BookNew York : Scholastic Press, ©2000 — J RYAN,P
  • Krystia, around 12 years old, is living under Soviet occupation in a small Ukrainian village in 1941. When the Germans arrive, the townspeople are initially celebratory, anticipating that their lives will improve, but their hopes are soon…
    BookNew York : Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., 2019 — J Pbk SKRYPUCH,M
  • Also available in eBook and eAudiobook. A grandmother shares her story of survival as a Jew in France during World War II.As part of a homework assignment, Julian (Auggie's chief tormentor in Wonder, 2012) video chats with Grandmère, who…
    Graphic NovelNew York : Alfred A. Knopf, [2019] — JGN WHITE
  • Two boys forge a brief and dangerous alliance in 1938 Germany. Friedrich Weber is a 12-year-old member of the Jungvolk in Hannover. Membership is mandatory if quietly reluctant on his part. Emil Rosen is a 12-year-old Jewish boy in…
    BookNew York, NY : Ig Publishing, Inc., 2019 — J VOIGT KAPLAN,J
  • Also available in eBook, eAudiobook, Audiobook and Large Print. With the threat of German bombs being dropped on London, most parents are anxious to get their children out of the city. But Ada’s mother, shamed by her daughter’s deformed…
    BookNew York, New York : Dial Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, [2015] — J BRADLEY,K
  • It's 1940, the beginning of the Blitz, and 13-year-old Kenneth Sparks is selected to go to Canada as part of a program to send British children to the safety of the U.K.'s overseas dominions. When his ship is torpedoed, Kenneth, five other…
    BookNew York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, [2018] — J HOOD,S
  • Also available in eBook, eAudiobook and Audiobook. In the midst of political turmoil, how do you escape the only country that you've ever known and navigate a new life? Parallel stories of three different middle school-aged…
    BookNew York : Scholastic Press, 2017 — J GRATZ,A
  • Also available in eBook, eAudiobook and Audiobook. The action begins just before dawn on June 6, 1944, and ends near midnight that same day. Six different operations in settings across Europe, each fictionalized with imagined characters…
    BookNew York : Scholastic Press, 2019 — J GRATZ,A
  • Natsu’s twelfth birthday finds her in Manchuria with her small family, Japanese farmers with an unyielding belief in their Emperor’s preeminence. When her father is called up to WWII’s Manchurian front, Natsu is left to care for her little…
    BookNew York : Henry Holt and Company, 2019 — J NAGAI,M
  • During World War II, Manami and her parents and grandfather are forced to relocate from Bainbridge Island in Washington to Manzanar, an internment camp in California for Japanese-Americans. As they're about to leave behind everything they…
    BookNew York : Farrar Straus Giroux, 2016 — J SEPAHBAN,L
  • A harrowing, heartbreaking tale of hope, love, and survival against insurmountable odds. Twelve-year-old Sora and her family live under the oppressive North Korean communist regime of 1950. As the South Korean army begins to lose ground to…
    BookNew York : Holiday House, [2020] — J LEE,J
  • Also available on eBook, eAudiobook and Audiobook CD. When a young girl gains confidence from her failures and strength from what her community dreads most, life delivers magic and hope. Stella Mills and her brother Jojo witness the Ku…
    BookNew York : Atheneum Books for Young Readers, [2015] — J DRAPER,S
  • Also available in eBook, eAudiobook, Audiobook CD and Large Print. A Black family living in the South during the 1930s is faced with prejudice and discrimination which their children don't understand.
    BookNew York : Dial Press, c1976 — J TAYLOR,M
  • Also available in eBook, eAudiobook, Audiobook CD and Large Print. The ordinary interactions and everyday routines of the Watsons, an African American family living in Flint, Michigan, are drastically changed after they go to visit Grandma…
    BookNew York : Delacorte Press, 1995 — J CURTIS,C
  • Also available in eBook, eAudiobook and Large Print. It is 1968, and three black sisters from Brooklyn have been put on a California-bound plane by their father to spend a month with their mother, a poet who ran off years before and is…
    BookNew York, NY : Amistad, c2010 — J WILLIAMS-GARCIA,R
  • A quiet but stirring historical novel about the awkward, thrilling, and often painful moments that make middle school a pivotal time.It's 1971, and best friends Jamila, Josie, and Francesca are excited to start seventh grade. But when…
    BookNew York : Wendy Lamb Books, 2019 — J BUDHOS,M
  • House Without Walls

    May 10, 1979 to June 7, 1980

    Russell, Ching Yeung,
    Set soon after the 1975 Fall of Saigon, Russell’s novel reveals how life in Communist Vietnam becomes especially difficult for ethnic Chinese residents. Eleven-year-old Lam and her brothers, Daigo and Dee Dee, flee, hoping to join their…
    BookNew York, NY : Yellow Jacket, an imprint of Little Bee Books, Inc., [2019] — J RUSSELL,C
  • Available in eBook. The citizens of the town of Pripyat, Ukraine, have always been assured that "an accident at a nuclear power station was a statistical impossibility."So when the morning of April 26, 1986, dawns red, with "unearthly…
    BookNew York : Viking, 2020 — J BLANKMAN,A
  • In July 2001, as 11-year-old Fadi and his family hastily board a truck to begin their escape from Afghanistan, six-year-old Mariam lets go of her brother's hand and is tragically left behind. Their arrival in San Francisco is bittersweet…
    BookNew York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, c2010 — J SENZAI,N