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Quake!
written by Joe Cottonwood

With their parents away at the 1989 World Series, fourteen-year-old Franny, her younger brother, and their cousin try to cope with the frightening events following an earthquake that destroys their home on Loma Prieta mountain.

Janey G. Blue Pearl Harbor, 1941
written by Janey G. Blue

In Hawaii in 1941, sixth grader Janey G. Blue experiences the terror of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

A Blizzard Year
written by Gretel Ehrlich

For one year, thirteen-year-old Timmy records in her journal the changes she sees in the natural world and her family's activities on their Wyoming ranch as they fight to save it from financial ruin.

Bull Run
written by Paul Fleischman

Northerners, Southerners, generals, couriers, dreaming boys, and worried sisters describe the glory, the horror, the thrill, and the disillusionment of the first battle of the Civil War.

Saturnalia
written by Paul Fleischman

In 1681 in Boston, fourteen-year-old William, a Narragansett Indian captured in a raid six years earlier, leads a productive and contented life as a printer's apprentice but is increasingly anxious to make some connection with his Indian past.

The Water Puppets
written by Clive Gifford

The place is Vietnam, the time is 1967, and the farmers of Noy Thien village are caught in the midst of war. American troops have entered the village, and for thirteen-year-old Xuan and his family, the world is about to turn upside down. Neighbors are fighting neighbors and no one seems to know who the real enemy is.

Five Smooth Stones: Hope's Diary
written by Kristiana Gregory

In her diary, a girl writes about her life and the events surrounding the beginning of American Revolution in Philadelphia in 1776.

Our Strange Land: Elizabeth's Diary
written by Patricia Hermes

Nine-year-old Elizabeth keeps a journal of her experiences in the New World as she encounters Indians, suffers hunger and the death of friends, and helps her father build their first home.

Just Juice
written by Karen Hesse

Realizing that her father's lack of work has endangered her family, nine-year-old Juice decides that she must return to school and learn to read in order to help their chances of surviving and keeping their house.

Smiler's Bones
written by Peter Lerangis

Explorer Robert Peary brings six Eskimos to a New York City museum to be a living exhibit. Qisuk, known as "Smiler," and his son Minik are part of the exhibit. Four of the Eskimos die, including Smiler, and one Eskimo returns to Greenland. Minik spends twelve years at the museum amid lies and deception, in search of the truth and a way to survive.

A Boy at War
written by Eric Walters

While fishing with his friends off Honolulu on December 7, 1941, Adam is caught in the midst of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Girl of Kosovo
written by Alice Mead

Although Zana, an eleven-year-old Albanian girl experiences the turmoil and violence of the 1999 conflict in her native Kosovo, she remembers her father's admonition to not let her heart become filled with hate.

Call Me Francis Tucket
written by Gary Paulsen

A boy becomes a man on the Oregon trail during an 1845 wilderness trek across the American west.

Nightjohn
written by Gary Paulsen

Sarny is a slave who wants to read and write, and Nightjohn is a slave who returned from freedom in the north to educate his friends.

Kipling's Choice
written by Geert Spillebeen

In 1915, mortally wounded in Loos, France, eighteen-year-old John Kipling, son of writer Rudyard Kipling, remembers his boyhood and the events leading to what is to be his first and last World War I battle.

A Traitor Among Us
written by Elizabeth Van Steenwyk

In occupied Holland in 1944, Peter becomes increasingly involved in the work of the Dutch Resistance even though he knows the risk of being discovered by the Nazi informer.

Fruitlands
written by Gloria Whelan

Fictional diary entries recount the true-life efforts of Louisa May Alcott's family to establish a utopian community known as Fruitlands in Massachusetts in 1843.

Dead Man's Gold and Other Stories
written by Paul Lee

The characters in these stories are men and women, rich and poor, greedy and good, young and old -- all Chinese immigrants struggling to make new lives for themselves in North America.

When the Circus Came to Town
written by Laurence Yep

An Asian cook and a Chinese New Year celebration help a girl at a Montana stage coach station to regain her confidence after smallpox scars her face.