what is a good historical fiction book for a teenager?

Answer 1

For teenagers, interested in serious historical fiction, perhaps not as long nor covering as much time as James Michener's or Irving Stone's ilk, there are many, excellent young adult novels set in the past--all serious, all well-researched, but rather quick reads.

Any good public library will likely have a list of historical fiction for young adults. Here are just a few examples:

For contrasting views of the American Revolution, two classics are Howard Fast's April Morning and My Brother Sam Is Dead by the Collier brothers. (Howard Fast, by the way, was an adult novelist who wrote Spartacus about Roman slaves and a Hollywood script writer who was blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee in the days of McCarthyism.) Fast's novel deals with the beginning of the Revolution, and the Colliers' deals with a family split between Tory and Yankee.

For the Civil War, Irene Hunt's Across Five Aprils also deals with a family split between between Union and Confederacy. She also wrote a prize winner about the Great Depression, Up a Road Slowly.

Another splendid piece of historical fiction about the Depression is Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse, about the dust bowl years in Oklahoma.

Another respected author of YA historical fiction is Ann Rinaldi. For example, her Break with Charity has to do with the Salem witch trials and Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons centers around Phillis Wheatley, an African American poetess of the George Washington period.

Avi (pen name for Edward Irving Wortis) writes books for teenagers around 13 or so. His Crispin:The Cross of Lead won the Newbery Award in 2003. Set in 1377 England, it deals with a young man who does not know his own identity and his travels with a juggler. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, set on a ship voyaging from England to Rhode Island in 1832. Charlotte survives mutiny and eventually becomes the ship captain herself.

There are many, many more, dealing with all periods of American history, but also with European, Asian, and occasionally African and Latin American history.

I must mention my two favorites. Although regrettably both of them are out of print now, their books are still widely available in used bookstores, good hardbacks that cost less than new cheap paperbacks. [See abebooks.com ]

Bruce Clements' The Face of Abraham Candle deals with a youngster's search for Native American artifacts in Mesa Verde in 1893. I Tell a Lie Every So Often follows the comic adventures of a 14-year-old traveling up the Missouri River in 1848. There is a sequel, Chapel of Thieves, that follows the young man's adventures in Paris in 1849. Prison Window, Jerusalem Blue is set in 831 when an English brother and sister, members of a family of entertainers, are kidnapped in a Viking raid and taken as slaves to the land of their captors.

My other favorite is James D. Forman. His YA historical novels are too numerous to mention, better than most, so thought-provoking that they never became popular, but intensely interesting. For example, Ring the Judas Bell tells the story of a group of Greek children taken from their homes by Communist guerrillas after World War II. They try to make their way back from a prison camp in the Yugoslav mountains. Other novels with a Grecian background are The Shield of Achilles (Cyprus) and Skies of Crete. But he also wrote historical fiction dealing with the American Revolution, Prince Charlie's rebellion, life on a whaler, slavery in the South, growing up Sioux, Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, the French and German resistance to Hitler, Arab-Jewish conflict in Palestine in 1948, civil rights workers in the 1960s, Protestant-Catholic conflict in Belfast,and so forth. An interesting book of his, Doomsday Plust Twelve, was written in 1984 about Oregon teenagers in 2000 (!), survivors in a post-nuclear America. Forman is a lawyer, who has also written non-fiction books such as Capitalism, Communism, Nazism, Socialism, Anarchism, and the like.

Some teenagers like long historical sagas following several generations of the same family or clan. Others like "costume romances," novels set in the past, but not dealing very seriously with historical issues. The novels I've mentioned would not be for them. These YA novels are well-researched in and are enjoyable for adults to read as well as teenagers. They differ from adult novels, not in their seriousness or realism, but in their length (usually around 150 pages), narrower focus on historic issues, and their presentation of and through youthful protagonists.

Answer 2

Almost any historical fiction written by Irving Stone or by James Michener is good. See what's in the library.

Answer 3

This is a good book.

To The Last Man

WW1 fiction book about pilots.

Answer 4

I highly recommend anything by John Jakes. He is, in my humble opinion, the master of historical fiction. You could do worse than start with North and South.

Answer 5

Depends what period in history!
The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliffe is good, Roman times. War Dog,by Martin Booth( WW2) is GREAT too.
For fun and information there is the whole of the Horrible History series by Terry Deary. You learn a lot but it is REALLY funny and entertaining.

Answer 6

"The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle" by Avi. About a proper New England girl of 13 who ends up joining a mutiny and became a sailor on a ship where she is a passenger. I learned a lot about nineteenth-century sailing ships and society. It is exciting and surprisingly believable. I, a proper and rule-following person myself, felt that I would have done exactly what Charlotte did....

Answer 7

Kathryn Lasky's "Beyond the Burning Time" and "Blood Secret"
Elizabeth George Speare's "The Witch of Blackbird Pond"

Answer 8

Shogun, by James Clavell

Answer 9

How about romance?

-"Till death do us part" -
-"For Better, For Worse, Forever"-

Both by the same author: Lurlene mcdaniel
Gotta love her!!! =)

Answer 10

My Brother Sam is Dead