Historical Fiction

Historical Fiction genre

Running with the Horses

Nina and her father live in a beautiful riding school famous for their Lippizaners–precious, rare performing horses. Nina loves the horses that her father looks after, but she also loves Zelda, one of the old carriage horses who she sneaks out to see. It’s a perfect world for a little girl, although she has to compete with her father’s work for his attention. But a war is coming, one that will threaten their lives and the very existence of the school. When the city is under attack, Nina and Father are in charge of fleeing with the horses to a safe place across the border, but can they pass enemy soldiers, bombed out bridges and the fearsome cold of the Alps to get there? And can Nina save her beloved Zelda, too?

The King’s Secret: The Legend of King Sejong

Chosun Dynasty had a wise King Sejong. When a humble servant boy tells of his longing to read and write, King Sejong sets out to create a simple yet beautiful way to write the Korean language. The people reject the new way of writing–until the boy gives the king another grand idea.

Revolver

A loaded gun, stolen gold, and a menacing stranger. A taut frontier survivor story, set at the time of the Alaska gold rush. In an isolated cabin, fourteen-year-old Sig is alone with a corpse: his father, who has fallen through the ice and frozen to death only hours earlier. Then comes a stranger claiming that Sig’s father owes him a share of a horde of stolen gold. Sig’s only protection is a loaded Colt revolver hidden in the cabin’s storeroom. The question is, will Sig use the gun, and why?

Saving Zasha

In 1945 Russia, those who own German shepherds are considered traitors, but thirteen-year-old Mikhail and his family are determined to keep the dog a dying man brought them, while his classmate Katia strives to learn his secret.

See the review at WOW Review, Volume 4, Issue 3

Water Ghost

In China in the 1940s, ten-year-old Ying sells her handmade bamboo chicken fences to make money to attend a school camping trip, but no one understands why she instead uses her earnings to buy a dead hen from the grandmother of a drowned classmate.

Daughter of Xanadu

Athletic and strong willed, Princess Emmajin’s determined to do what no woman has done before: become a warrior in the army of her grandfather, the Great Khan Khubilai. In the Mongol world the only way to achieve respect is to show bravery and win glory on the battlefield. The last thing she wants is the distraction of the foreigner Marco Polo, who challenges her beliefs in the gardens of Xanadu. Marco has no skills in the “manly arts” of the Mongols: horse racing, archery, and wrestling. Still, he charms the Khan with his wit and story-telling. Emmajin sees a different Marco as they travel across 13th-century China, hunting ‘dragons’ and fighting elephant-back warriors. Now she faces a different battle as she struggles with her attraction towards Marco and her incredible goal of winning fame as a soldier.

Owl Ninja

Sensei Ki-yaga leads Niya and the other students of the Cockroach Ryu on a journey to beg the feudal Emperor to stop war from breaking out between the mountain ryus, putting to the test the firm friendship and unusual skills of these physically-disabled samurai-in-training.

The Winds of Heaven

Clementine thinks her cousin Fan is everything that she could never be: beautiful, imaginative, wild. The girls promise to be best friends and sisters after the summer is over, but Clementine’s life in the city is different from Fan’s life in dusty Lake Conapaira. And Fan is looking for something, though neither she nor Clementine understands what it is. Printz Honor Winner Judith Clarke delivers a compassionate, compelling novel with the story of a friendship between two young women, and of the small tragedies that tear them apart from each other, and from thtemselves.