Historical Fiction With Great Stories

Have you recently gotten an assignment requiring you to read some historical fiction or are you looking for enticing historical fiction to read? Don't worry. Not all historical fiction is boring. In fact most of the stories listed below read like a good mystery and/or suspense. From the heart of battle in Vietnam to a riches to rags story in Mexico, you'll encounter brave, courageous, feisty main characters and action to keep you hanging on to every word. 

• Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson.
  When Hattie goes to Montana to work the farm her Uncle left her in his will; she faces a bitter winter that threatens her very survival.
• A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly.
  It's 1906, and as 16-year-old Mattie struggles to make her way to college to be a writer, a summer job at an inn entangles her in a murder mystery.
• The Keeping Room by Anna Myers.
  When his father leaves to fight as a rebel in the Revolutionary War, thirteen-year-old Joey must guard his home and family against the British who threaten their safety.
• Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War II by Joseph Bruchac.
  Ned, a Navajo, joins the Marines in World War II and becomes a code talker, sending coded messages in his native language.
• Fallen Angelsby Walter Dean Myers.
  Seventeen-year-old Richie Perry is sent to Vietnam and experiences firsthand the horrors of war.
• Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan.
  When her father is brutally murdered, 14-year-old Esperanza and her mother leave Mexico to work in a California migrant camp in the 1930s.
• Under the Blood-Red Sun by Graham Salisbury.
  Tom's typical teenage life is turned upside down when Pearl Harbor is bombed in 1941 and his father and grandfather are taken away to a prison camp.
• Grape Thief by Kristine L. Franklin.
  In Washington State in 1925, 12-year-old Slava "Cuss" Petrovitch does his best to stay out of trouble, but when the annual Californian grape train comes through town he decides to join his friends in stealing some grapes and maybe hopping a ride.
• Wolf by the Ears by Ann Rinaldi.
  Harriet has the privilege of being freed from slavery when she turns 21, but this means leaving the only home she has ever known, the household of Thomas Jefferson.
• Ten Cents a Dance by Christine Fletcher.
  After her father's death and her mother develops severe arthritis Ruby must work as a taxi dancer to get her family out of debt, but faces physical threats from some of her customers and increasing difficulty hiding her job from her family and friends.