Historical Fiction

Historical Fiction genre

El Lector

Thirteen-year-old Bella wants to be a lector just like her grandfather. All day long he sits on a special platform in the cigar factory in Ybor City, Florida, reading books, newspapers, and current events to workers as they roll the cigars. Lectors have always been highly respected members of their Cuban American community.But now times are changing. When the factory workers clash with the owners, violence erupts and the lectors start losing their jobs. And then there’s the radio. Could this small device replace the lector? It’s up to Bella to determine her future and help her people preserve their history.

Journey Of Dreams

For the peaceful highlanders of Guatemala, life has become a nightmare. Helicopters slash like machetes through the once-quiet air. Soldiers patrol the streets, hunting down suspected guerillas. Villagers mysteriously disappear and children are recruited as soldiers. Tomasa’s family is growing increasingly desperate, especially after Mama goes into hiding with Tomasa’s oldest brother. Finally, after their house is razed to the ground and the villagers massacred, Tomasa, Manuelito, and baby Maria set off with Papa on a perilous journey to find Mama and Carlos, only to discover that where one journey ends, another begins. This gripping novel tells the story of how Tomasa’s family survives the Guatemalan army’s brutal regime and how, in the midst of tragedy, their love and loyalty — and Papa’s storytelling — keeps them going on their harrowing journey as refugees to the United States. Mirrored in the tapestries of Tomasa’s dreams, the dramatic events of the Guatemalan army’s “scorched earth” campaign of the 1980s are tempered with hope and the generosity of the human spirit.

Star of Luis

When Luís’s father joins the army shortly after the start of World War II, Luís’s entire life changes. His mother decides to return to the dusty New Mexican village where she and her husband grew up. In Los Angeles, Luís had struggled to find a place in his ethnically diverse neighborhood and had been intimidated into ending a close friendship with a Jewish boy. In Las Manos, everyone is Hispanic and Catholic like Luís, but the way of life seems backward and slow. Luís and his mother stay in a cramped bungalow with his dying grandfather and sullen grandmother, and Luís must share a bed with his uncle, a priest. Then, just as Luís begins to feel more comfortable in Las Manos, he learns an settling fact-his family is not Catholic after all. They are Jewish, a secret that has been kept for generations. Angry and confused, Luís realizes he must confront his feelings about family, religion, and friends, and ultimately make his own decision about who he is. Glossary of Spanish words.

Botas Negras

botasThis story takes place in Mexico in the summer of 1830, during the fight for independence. Neto and his family seek refuge in the countryside, away from the bloody conflict. During this time of anxiety and confusion, Neto finds a friend in a goat named Black Boots. (Spanish version.)

Surprising Cecilia

Surprising Cecilia is the second novel-following the success of Cecilia’s Year-about a girl whose dreams carry her far beyond the small farm community she lives in. Both novels are set in the rich Hispanic culture of the Rio Grande Valley in the 1930s. Cecilia has worked hard so that she can go to high school. Now it’s September-the school bus is bringing Cecilia to the new adventures, surprises, and responsibilities of growing up. Susan Gonzales Abraham and Denise Gonzales Abraham are the daughters of Cecilia Gonzales Abraham, the hero of the Cecilia books. Cecilia’s Year has been selected as the Best Book for Young Adults in 2004 by the Texas Institute of Letters.

Esperanza Rising

When Esperanza and Mama are forced to flee to the bountiful region of Aguascalientes, Mexico, to a Mexican farm labor camp in California, they must adjust to a life without fancy dresses adn servants they were accustomed to on Rancho de las Rosas. Now they must confront the challenges of hard work, acceptance by their own people, and economic difficulties brought on by the Great Depression. When Mama falls ill and a strike for better working conditions threatens to uproot their new life, Esperanza must relinquish her hold on the past learn to embrace a future ripe with the riches of family and community.

This book has been included in WOW’s Language and Learning: Children’s and Young Adult Fiction Booklist. For our current list, visit our Booklist page under Resources in the green navigation bar.

Pillars of Gold and Silver

After her father is killed in the Korean War, young Blanca Estela and her mother leave California to spend the summer in Revilla, an old town in Northern Mexico with Blanca’s grandmother. At first, Blanca is unhappy in their holiday retreat, but gradually makes friends and becomes part of the community.

Young Zorro: The Iron Brand (Young Zorro)

Diego de la Vega is more concerned with riding horses and making mischief with his best friend, Bernardo, than about fighting injustice. But all that changes when men start disappearing from the pueblo of Los Angeles and cattle go missing from his father’s rancho. Diego and Bernardo are about to encounter an injustice so evil that they will have no choice but to take action. Inspired by Isabel Allende’s novel Zorro, which reveals how Diego de la Vega became the legendary masked hero, Young Zorro: The Iron Brand introduces readers to a land of vaqueros and kidnappers—an exciting world in which a young hero is formed.

Noche de Humo

Eve Bunting’s heartfelt story and David Diaz’s dramatic illustrations create a compelling child’s-eye view of urban violence. A young boy and his mother are forced to flee their apartment during a night of rioting in Los Angeles. Fires and looting force neighbors–who have always avoided one another–to come together in the face of danger and concern for their missing pets. David Diaz was awarded the Caldecott Medal for his bold acrylic paint and photo-collage illustrations.

The Boys of San Joaquin

Paolo calls Rufus “a Mack truck with no one driving.” Rufus is the O’Neil family dog, and he shows up one morning with part of a twenty-dollar bill in his teeth.Paolo, age twelve, figures that there must be more where that bill came from, and since his cousin Billy needs to repair a bent wheel on his bike, there’s a reason for looking. He, Georgie, and Billy end up in the monsignor’s garden behind the Cathedral of San Joaquin, but it’s not exactly treasure they find, it’s a hand that shoots out of the undergrowth to grab Paolo’s neck. The search for the stash leads the boys — sometimes scared spitless — on many a byway around Orange Grove City, California, in the summer of 1951. And onto the byway of conscience.”Suppose you found a treasure. Couldn’t you keep it?” Paolo asks his uncle. “I mean, say you know who it belongs to, and they probably need it….But when you find it, nobody has it. Isn’t nobody’s property in particular, then,” he reasons. “Well, maybe somebody has it, but it isn’t theirs. It would be yours, wouldn’t it?”No answer. “How in the heck is a guy supposed to be somebody in this world without any money?”