Showing results for "blackstone" in Historical Fiction

Twelve-year-old Mary Jemison took for granted her peaceful days on her family's farm in eastern Pennsylvania. But on a spring day in 1758, something happened that changed her life forever. When a band of warriors invades the Jemisons' house and takes the family captive, Mary is separated from her parents and siblings. She travels with the Indians to southern Ohio and later to a Seneca village on the Genesee River in what is now western New York.

In London in 1735, 11-year-old Forrest Harper is living with his family at the Tower of London. There he helps his father tend the ravens and guard the prisoners. Still, life is lonely. When vicious Scottish Rebels are captured, Forrest is delighted. Perhaps now he can prove his courage and impress the local bullies who torment him. His happiness is short lived, though, when the Harpers are only given custody of Maddy, a Scottish Rebel's daughter.

In 1607, a year after the Virginia Company was granted a charter to establish a settlement in North America, 104 men set sail on a voyage to a new land. Among the brave adventurers who make the journey is a young boy named Samuel Collier, the page of famed Captain John Smith. Disease, famine, and continuing attacks by neighboring Algonquin Native Americans take a tremendous toll on the settlers. Samuel is one of the few to survive the harsh realities of the New World during the first few years of Jamestown.

Fourteen-year-old Rachel Marsh is nanny to John and Abigail Adams' children and witnesses firsthand how tension builds in the feisty New England town in the two years before it erupts in the Boston Massacre. Friends become foes and families divide as British troops arrive in 1768 to force the outspoken Bostonians to toe the line and obey the British government.

Winner of a Pura Belpré Award, this middle grade Cuban American coming-of-age novel is inspired by the author's own experience. When Julian's parents make the heartbreaking decision to send him and his two brothers away from Cuba to Miami via the Pedro Pan operation, the boys are thrust into a new world where bullies run rampant and it’s not always clear how best to protect themselves.

As Robert watches the townspeople's hostility toward the German Artist Hoffman build, he worries about his sensitive cousin Elliot's friendship with the artist. And he wonders more and more about the family secret everyone seems to be keeping from him - a secret involving Robert's father, a bomber pilot in Europe. Will Elliot's ability to detach himself from the turmoil around him be enough to sustain him when prejudice and suspicions erupt into violence? And can Robert find a way to deal with the truth about his family's past?

Early one morning in 1754, the stillness of Charlestown, New Hampshire, is shattered by shrill war whoops and the terror of an Indian raid. Young Miriam Willard, on a day which had promised new happiness, finds herself instead a captive on a forest trail, caught up in the ebb and flow of the French and Indian War.

Morris, Rudi, Ivan, and Beck are best friends for life. So when one of the teens is drafted into the Vietnam War, the others sign up, too. Although they each serve in a different branch, they are fighting the war together - and they pledge to do all they can to come home together. Haunted by dreams of violence and death, Morris makes it his personal mission to watch over his friends - and the best place to do that is in the US Navy. Stationed off the coast of Vietnam on the USS Boston, Morris and his fellow sailors provide crucial support to the troops on the ground.

Dominic Cantori is an orphan. Ashamed of his situation, Dominic avoids making friends for fear of exposing his terrible secret. One day on a class trip to Ellis Island, a tour guide asks everyone about their families. Immediately, Dominic flees from the class and hides in a closet, where he falls asleep for hours.

Willy Freeman's life changes forever when she witnesses her father's death at the hands of the Redcoats and returns home to find that the British have taken her mother as a prisoner to New York City. Willy, disguised as a boy, begins her long search for her mother and luckily finds a haven at the famous Fraunces Tavern. But even with the help of Sam Fraunces and her fellow worker, Horace, Willy knows that to be Black, female, and free leaves her open to danger at every turn. What will tomorrow bring?

Welcome to Humbug Mountain. Little did Wiley, the son of a traveling newspaperman, imagine that the search for his grandfather would lead him into the hands of those nasty villains of the West - Shagnasty John and the Fool Killer. Using their newspaper, The Humbug Mountain Hoorah, Wiley and his sister and mother go about outwitting the outlaws in their scheme to ambush Grandfather's new boat and its cargo of gold.

Charlotte Parkhurst was raised in the mid-1800s and was expected to live her life without the freedoms she dreamed of. But Charlotte was smart and determined, and she figured out a way to live her life the way she wanted; Charlotte became an expert horse rider, a legendary stagecoach driver, and the first woman ever to vote—at a time when such things were outlawed for women.

A young Indian boy from Nipigon country in the Canadian wilderness carves a twelve-inch canoe with a kneeling Indian figure and frees it to undertake a journey to the Atlantic Ocean in his place. He must stay home and help his father, but yearns to learn about the world beyond his life in the village.

Hannibal was a great and skillful general who defeated the Romans at Trebia, Lake Trasimenus, and Cannae, and all but took Rome.

Before she became the legendary Joan of Arc, the child Joan lived the simple life of a farm girl in the village of Domremy in France. Joan saw the work of God all around her, in the tall gnarled grandfather tree, in the small gentle sheep on the family farm, and in the faces of her dear friends and neighbors. Then one day Joan had a dream.

As Elsie Dinsmore grows up and becomes a young woman, her family undergoes major changes. Her father, Horace Dinsmore, falls in love and marries sweet Rose Allison, whom Elsie has loved since childhood. Soon two new members, Horace Jr. and Rosebud, join the happy family.

The entire family is thrown into turmoil, however, when a carriage accident threatens the life and sanity of Grandpa Dinsmore and Aunt Enna, and Violet is burned with a troublesome secret. Everyone in the family is thrilled as young Elsie blossoms under the warmth of new love, but sorrow strikes as Lily is gathered into the arms of the Good Shepherd despite all the efforts to save her life.

Laika is a “Cold Dog" - a stray pawing the streets of Moscow until Soviet researchers take her to live at the top-secret facility. Nervous and alone, she learns she will be trained to become a “starflyer”, an animal launched into outer space in the Soviet’s race against American innovation. Twelve-year-old Nina is also a “Cold Girl", heartbroken after her best friend defects to America. When Nina and Laika meet in Nina’s father’s lab, their growing bond slowly warms the cold that has settled in each other’s hearts.

In France in the year 1096, everyone in the Jewish community is terrified of the Crusaders, who have been known to burn Jewish houses in the name of religion. One cold Sabbath afternoon, while 12-year-old Elvina is alone in the house, three soldiers pound on her door. One of them is wounded. Elvina has only a moment to make a difficult choice that could put her family and the entire community at risk. Can her guardian angel guide her now?

Do you have what it takes to run off and join the army, leaving your family behind? That’s what John Lincoln Clem, a nine-year-old boy living in Ohio, does as the American Civil War rages on. In 1861, Johnny sneaks onto a train filled with men from the 3rd Ohio Union Regiment, determined to fight for his country. Taken in by the older soldiers, Johnny becomes a drummer boy—not to mention the youngest person to serve in the war. Living a soldier’s life, Johnny experiences the brutalities of battle and the hunger and illness in between.