Showing results by publisher "Recorded Books" in Historical Fiction

Imane is a curious young girl with a big question: What is behind the magic door inside her house? Her sister Caroline says it’s a door that goes everywhere and nowhere. Sometimes it’s red, sometimes it’s blue—and it smells like coffee beans and the ocean. Imane can only imagine what’s on the other side: a beautiful Caribbean island full of magic, music, and fun. Haiti.

In southern Japan, Tamiko spends her time writing in her diary, dreaming of making theatrical costumes, and praying her brother Kyo makes it back from the war. She wishes she could be brave like him and help the war effort. In rural Oregon, Nellie spends her time lying in the grass, studying the stars, and wishing for her pa to return from the war. She also wishes the boy next door, Joey, would talk to her again like he used to. Soon the girls' lives become inextricably linked.

Nutaaq adores her older sister, Aaluk, and the happy world of their close-knit Iñupiaq village. When Aaluk goes across the sea to marry a Siberian Inuit man, she gives Nutaaq a gift from her husband's people: two precious cobalt blue beads. Through the months that follow, as a great shadow falls over the village, the beads remind Nutaaq of the people she loves, and hold out hope that she might connect with her sister again.

On April 24, 1975, the last flight out of Saigon, Vietnam carried over 400 people to the United States, six days before Saigon’s surrender to the North Vietnamese Army. Kristen Giang was a little girl, on that flight with family, and here in this story she shares all the emotions of the decision to flee from the perspective of someone eight years old; Playing a game of space-explorers to protect herself and her sister’s eyes from tear gas; sneaking a stuffed animal into the family’s overstuffed suitcase for comfort.

India, 1857. Meera's future has been planned for her for as long as she can remember. As a child, her parents married her to a boy from a neighboring village whom she barely knows. Later, on the eve of her thirteenth birthday, she prepares to leave her family to live with her husband's—just as her strict religion dictates. But that night, Indian soldiers mutiny against their British commanders and destroy the British ammunition depot, burning down parts of Delhi. Riots follow, and Meera's husband is killed. 

It’s early September 2001, and twelve-year-old Abbey is the new kid at school. Tennessee is her family’s latest stop in a series of moves based on her dad’s work in the Army, but this one might be different. For the first time, Abbey has found a real friend: loyal, courageous, athletic Camille. And then it’s September 11. The country is under attack, and Abbey’s “home” looks like it might fall apart. America has changed overnight.

When a mysterious girl attempts to stake her claim to the Snowcroft family fortune, Myrtle Hardcastle’s father, a lawyer, is asked to help prove—or disprove—her identity. Is this truly Ethel Snowcroft, believed to have been lost at sea with her parents, or a con artist chasing a windfall? Mr. Hardcastle’s pursuit of the case takes a detour when he’s hospitalized for a tonsillectomy—only to witness a murder. But where’s the victim? And who at the hospital could be harboring murderous intent? Myrtle is determined to find out before the killer comes after her father.

As World War II threatens the United States in 1941, Junior Bledsoe fights his own battles at home. He struggles with school and with anger—at his late father, his insufferable granddaddy, his neighbors, and himself—as he desperately tries to find his own aim in life. But he finds relief escaping to the quiet of the nearby woods and tinkering with cars, something he learned from his pop. And a fatherly neighbor provides much-needed guidance. 

World War II is over, but the Honeycutt family is still feeling its devastating effects. Especially Daddy, who can’t forget what he saw on the battlefield and sometimes can’t cope with everyday life. Fourteen-year-old Ellie Honeycutt finds escape at the NASCAR speedway and in her dreams of travel and college. Her twin sister, Ida, clings to family and finds solace in her sketchbook. Once inseparable, the two sisters find themselves growing apart with the start of high school. 

It’s the summer of 1959 at the foot of Bakers Mountain in western North Carolina when 13-year-old Jackie Honeycutt first bumps into Thomas Freeman fishing on the riverbank. They hit it off, and Jackie hopes the two of them can be friends. But Jackie is white, and Thomas is Black—and Jackie quickly learns their growing friendship won’t be easy.

The war in the Bear Highen is over. Aster, at thirteen, has defeated her uncle and become the High Queen. Peace is good, but things are still difficult: political challenges confront her, personal challenges stymie her, and the massive Hemoth Bear, symbol of the House of the Bear, is beginning to resist her control. When, during a royal hunt, Aster stumbles on a young girl living in a nest of wyverns, matters become even more complex. Because this girl is not a girl at all. She is a living star, come down from her constellation, on a mission both terrible and glorious.

For nine-year-old Lorraine Jackson, the Sanitation Strike of 1968 hit close to home. Lorraine marched with her daddy and other sanitation workers through the streets of Memphis fighting for equal rights and safer working conditions. With her mother, she boycotted stores. Lorraine’s life was forever changed when she heard Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preach his famous sermon “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” to the tired and frustrated strikers. Dr. King was tragically killed the next day, and hope seemed shattered. 

"Apples, ho!" This delectable tale is a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year. Daddy has uprooted the family to move to Oregon—but not without his babies—apples, peaches, pears, plums, grapes, and cherries! Will Daddy's precious plants persevere? This tall tale is loosely based on a real-life fruit pioneer who brought his fruit trees along on the Oregon Trail.

Ann Fay Honeycutt accepts the role of "man of the house" when her father leaves because she wants to do her part for the war. She's doing well with the extra responsibilities when a frightening polio epidemic strikes, crippling many children. Ann Fay reads each issue of the newspaper for the latest news of the epidemic. But soon she discovers for herself just how devastating polio can be. As her challenges grow, so does her resourcefulness. Ann Fay discovers her ability to move forward, experiences the healing qualities of friendship, and explores the depths of her own faithfulness.

Twelve-year-old Maren is sure theater camp isn’t for her. Theater camp is for loud, confident, artsy people: people like her older sister, Hadley and her cinema-obsessed, nonbinary bunkmate, Theo. But when a prank goes wrong, Maren gets drawn into the hunt for a diamond ring that, legend has it, is linked to the camp’s namesake, Charlotte “Charlie” Goodman, a promising director in blacklist-era Hollywood. But they’re not the only ones searching for the ring, and with the growing threat of camp closing forever, they're almost out of time.

As a boy, Kenichi “Zeni” Zenimura dreams of playing professional baseball, but everyone tells him he is too small. Yet he grows up to be a successful player, playing with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig! When the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor in 1941, Zeni and his family are sent to one of ten internment camps where more than 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry are imprisoned without trials. Zeni brings the game of baseball to the camp, along with a sense of hope. This true story, set in a Japanese internment camp, introduces children to a little-discussed part of American history.

Black hands in Fayette County, Tennessee, were free to pick cotton and corn but were barred from casting ballots. A whirlwind of change blew through the county when Black landowners like John McFerren and Harpman Jameson organized registration drives to help Black citizens vote—but not without violent attempts to stop it. White farmers evicted Black sharecroppers off their land, leaving families stranded and forced to live in tents. White shopkeepers also refused to sell to them. But the voiceless did finally speak. In 1965 the Voting Rights Act legally ended voter discrimination. 

Roberto Alvarez’s world changed the day he could no longer attend Lemon Grove Grammar School in the small, rural community where he lived near San Diego, California. He and the other Mexican American students were told they had to go to a new, separate school on Olive Street. A school just for them. A school where they would not hold back the other students. But Roberto and the Mexican American students and their families believed the new school’s real purpose was to segregate, to separate. They didn’t think that was right, or just, or legal.

Kohei Fujiwara has never seen a big ryū in real life. Those dragons all disappeared from Japan after World War II, and 20 years later, they've become the stuff of legend. Their smaller cousins, who can fit in your palm, are all that remain. And Kohei loves his ryū, Yuharu, but...Kohei has a memory of the big ryū. He knows that's impossible, but still, it's there, in his mind. In it, he can see his grandpa—Ojiisan—gazing up at the big ryū with what looks to Kohei like total and absolute wonder. 

Jeska doesn't know why her mother keeps the curtains drawn so tightly every day. And what exactly is she trying to drown out when she floods the house with Mozart? What are they hiding from? When Jeska's grandmother accidentally calls her by a stranger's name, she seizes her first clue to uncovering her family's past, and hopefully to all that's gone unsaid. With the help of an old family photo album, her father's encyclopedia collection, and the unquestioning friendship of a stray cat, the silence begins to melt into frightening clarity.