8 Young Adult Historical Fiction Recommendations

Edda St. James was one of the Hello Girls, young American women who operated telephone switchboards in Europe during World War I. But after cutting her service short and returning to America, she’s working as a switchboard operator at Bell, living in a room at her aunt’s boarding house, and trying to hold herself together when her memories threaten to tear her apart.

One morning, as she’s wrapping up her night shift, she picks up her cord only to hear a voice beg, “Help. . . . You have to tell the truth. The fa— . . . Brightwood.”

Brightwood. The word sends Edda into a spiral: it was the code word for a group of US soldiers who died behind enemy lines because she froze, unable to remember the day’s codes, delaying an urgent message from reaching them.

She sets out to discover who the mysterious caller is by visiting the families of the soldiers who died, aided by Theo, the young man who lives in the room next to hers at the boarding house. But Edda and Theo are both holding back parts of their past that threaten their partnership.

This is an engaging pageturner: we wanted to know what was going to happen and get to the bottom of the Brightwood incident (and we think students will, too). In some ways, the novel was frustrating because as a reader, we can see that Edda’s response is irrational: she’s taking far too much responsibility for a simple mistake. But as the novel comes to an end, it’s clear that this is part of Hesse’s purpose: Edda has a lot of healing to do from her experiences in the war, and part of that healing process is accepting that you won’t always get the endings and closure you want. The novel is ultimately about grief, guilt, and overcoming trauma, and it sheds light on a lesser-known role women played in the war.

The novel is appropriate for a wide range of young adult audiences, but do be aware there is a scene of attempted rape.

Thank you NetGalley and Little, Brown Books for Young Readers for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are our own.

We’ve recommended Kim Johnson’s novels before—she writes excellent mysteries that explore issues of race in America. Her newest piece of young adult historical fiction feels equally fresh, suspenseful, and important, but it goes back in history to the suburban 1950s.

Calvin has always been able to pass as white, but he’s only done so occasionally: to help his dad research safe places for The Negro Motorist Green-Book, a guidebook for Black roadtrippers that provided resources about which businesses would serve them during the Jim Crow era, or to get food for himself and his friends. But his ability to pass becomes a matter of life and death when his family moves from Chicago to Levittown, Pennsylvania, an all-white suburb, and his father makes it clear that he is not to let anyone know the truth about their family.

The longer Calvin lives the lie, the more uncomfortable he feels. He must navigate racist comments from his classmates, and he’d much rather spend time with the Black students at the small boarding school his brother runs nearby (and the beautiful Lily, who is bravely integrating his high school). Most importantly, however, he must deny who he really is and what’s truly important to him.

The danger ratchets up as the story unfolds: as Calvin spends more and more time with the Black community, he risks being seen by his white friends from the high school, especially when he attends a CORE meeting and begins investigating the shady dealings his boss, a realtor and the head of the neighborhood association, seems to be taking to intentionally keep people of color out of his “perfect” suburbs.

Johnson’s author’s note explains her intention to explore historical practices like redlining and other exclusionary measures that have kept Black families from home ownership, practices that have contributed to modern racial inequities. While the end of the novel pushes the limits of belief a bit, the novel is an engaging read that explores an important but less discussed part of American history.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Children’s Books for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are our own.

The novel begins only a few years after the War Between the States, but the war didn’t end with a victorious North and reunified nation. Instead, it transformed into the War Against the Dead when dead men began rising from the Gettysburg battlefield, turning others into undead “shamblers” with a bite.

As the Survivalist party, determined to retake the cities and restore America to its former glory, rises, Congress establishes a series of combat schools to train Black and Native Americans to protect the country’s white citizens from shamblers.

After a series of mysterious shambler attacks and disappearances in Baltimore, Jane and Katherine, classmates at Miss Preston’s School of Combat for Negro Girls, begin investigating, only to find themselves sent to Summerland, a frontier town where the sheriff and the pastor exert tight control over the Black men and women assigned to patrol the town wall and protect the town’s people from shamblers.

But something isn’t right, and Jane is determined to figure out what’s going on and escape. As she works her patrol shifts, Katherine, who is lighter-skinned and able to pass as white, lives among the townspeople, and they both work to uncover the town’s hidden secrets, placing themselves in increasing danger.

We loved this one: it took a little while to get into it, but once we did, we couldn’t stop turning pages to see what would happen to Jane and Katherine, and the novel ends on a cliffhanger that makes it all too tempting to find the sequel immediately. It was also interesting to read the author’s note and see that she was inspired by the boarding and industrial schools where Native American children were sent and victimized. Her novel explores the question, “If well-meaning Americans could do such a thing to an already wholly subjugated community in a time of peace, what would they do in a time of desperation?” The answer is chilling.

The novel does include scenes of violence, and a brothel plays a role in the frontier town, but for the most part, it is appropriate for a wide range of students.

Portugal, in the late 1960s, is ruled by an authoritarian government, and the repression of political dissidents is fierce. Sonia attends high school during a time when the country’s leader “tells us we do not debate The Certainties: / God and His virtue / the Fatherland and its history / authority and its prestige / the family and its morals / the glory of work and its duty.”

Sonia, however, longs to write poetry that is not bound by strict rules and regulations. She is in love with Zé Miguel, a revolutionary who fights for the workers and the oppressed. Neither of these passions is acceptable in her world, where no one can be trusted and everyone—her father, the government, the nuns at her school—is desperate to maintain tight control.

When Zé Miguel is arrested and her family’s restaurant is closed after her uncle hired a banned musician, Sonia must drop out of school to work in a hotel laundry room. Sonia’s friends abandon her, and she must spend her days engaged in painful and exhausting work.

But her desire for freedom and poetry remains, and as she sees the way the hotel exploits its workers, she becomes increasingly angry and determined “to live on [her] own / in a place where a woman can live on her own.”

We knew almost nothing about this period in Portugal’s history, and were immediately drawn into Sonia’s story, written in gorgeous verse. We’re grateful for the opportunity to learn more.

Thank you NetGalley, Carolrhoda Lab, and Lerner Publishing Group for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are our own.

The first book in a duology, Foul Lady Fortune is set in the same universe as These Violent Delights and Our Violent Ends, but it can be read on its own (and, to be honest, we liked it better than the original duology).

Rosalind Lang, presumed dead after an explosive battle between two rival gangs, has become the famed assassin Lady Fortune after receiving an injection that has given her super healing abilities. Her cells regenerate immediately when damaged, meaning she has become essentially immortal. Now she works for the Kuomintang, the Nationalist Party of China, killing remaining members of the White Flowers (one of the former gangs that ruled the city).

The novel opens with a scene intended to be the Mukden Incident, an explosion that played a key role in the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, and the Nationalists, Communists, and Japanese imperialists are engaged in a complicated political game over China’s future. Rosalind is sent to work undercover at Seagreen Press, a Japanese publication, as the wife of Orion Hong. Orion is the son of a general accused of betraying the country, and his brother Oliver works with the Communist party (conveniently partnered with Rosalind’s sister Celia).

As the two try to carry out their mission, they become caught up in an investigation of a series of murders sweeping through Shanghai, and they face danger and betrayal at every turn.

Gong’s novel introduced us to a period of history we didn’t know much about, and it’s a page-turning spy thriller that became harder to put down the farther we got into the complicated twists and turns. We immediately placed the sequel on hold at the library.

Twelve years ago, Nisha and her twin brother Amir were born, and their mother died in childbirth. After receiving a new diary from Kazi, who cooks for her family, Nisha decides to fill it with letters to her mother, detailing this year of her life. Initially, she doesn’t understand when Kazi tells her “someone needs to make a record of the things that will happen because the grown-ups will be too busy.”

But we soon see what Kazi was referring to: it’s 1947, and India is on the verge of gaining independence from Britain. But Nisha’s world is turned upside down when she learns India will be split into two countries—India and Pakistan. Her town will become part of Pakistan, but because her father is Hindu, they will have to leave for a new life in India. She is devastated to leave her home, and because her mother was Muslim, it feels like she is leaving a piece of herself behind.

It’s not long before the family—Nisha, Amir, their father, and their grandmother Dadi—sets out for their new home, traveling over 100 miles on foot and by train. The journey is physically exhausting and dangerous, especially when fights break out between the Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs on the road with them. And yet the family persists, and Nisha chronicles every step of the journey in her diary.

Nisha is brave, scared, honest, and confused, and she must navigate enormous loss as she adjusts to her new reality and struggles to understand why there must be conflict between all the groups that call India, and now Pakistan, home.

Green’s gorgeous novel in verse would make a perfect pair with Ruta Sepetys’s I Must Betray You.

Helena lives in East Germany in 1989, where Communists rule, and it is dangerous to dream. And yet she does dream, longing to be a conductor and one day travel beyond the Berlin Wall. Her father dreams of free elections, and her mother dreams of being able to enjoy fresh oranges again. 

In the meantime Helena finds joy in music, learning to play the compositions of Wagner, Mozart, and Bach from her piano teacher, a passion she shares with her best friend, Katrin. When Katrin and her family defect, however, Helena is devastated.

But Katrin’s departure also gives Helena a new boldness, joining her father in the peace meetings and protests held at Saint Nicholas Church. Her boldness also comes from her growing relationship with Lucas, the young man who takes Katrin’s place with their piano teacher. But how close can two people get in a country where the Stasi, the secret police, are constantly watching, turning citizens against one another by threatening them into becoming informants?

The novel in verse sheds light on the experience of those on the Eastern side of the Berlin Wall in the not-too-distant past, and it’s also full of hope, as we watch Helena and her friends and family risk their lives to stand up for the peace and freedom they so deeply desire.

Thank you NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are our own.

Claire Joyce is growing up in Brooklyn in the 1970s, and what she loves more than anything else is playing basketball. Her older brother John taught her, but sports have traditionally been reserved for boys, and despite the passage of Title IX in 1972, it’s difficult to find opportunities to play.

For Claire, basketball is the bright spot amidst a challenging life: her working-class family struggles to make ends meet, her father is rarely home, her mother is an alcoholic (and often mean when drunk), her older brother John (whom she admires) is in prison, and her brother Bobby is violent and abusive. It’s a lot to navigate for a young woman who is trying to grow into herself and determine what her future can look like.

Students who are interested in sports will love the detailed descriptions of basketball that weave throughout the book. But there’s also something there for those of us who are less athletically inclined: Claire’s efforts to manage her family are sad yet relatable and ring true for those of us who have learned how to “read” a family member’s demeanor for telltale signs of conflict and instability and must grapple with a combination of love, anger, and hurt over how our family members treat us and themselves.

The novel includes a few instances of profanity, and drug use plays a significant role in the story, but for the most part, the novel is appropriate for a wide range of students, especially since it follows Claire from the end of elementary school through her senior year of high school.

Thank you NetGalley and She Writes Press for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are our own.