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Historical Fiction | Page 25 | LitPick Book Reviews
Historical Fiction
The Mighty Miss Malone
The Mighty Miss Malone
Christopher Paul Curtis
Amazon Best Books of the Month for Kids, January 2012: The Mighty Miss Malone is one Deza Malone--dedicated student and member of a close-knit family whose motto is “we are a family on a journey to a place called Wonderful.” Unfortunately, the Great Depression is taking a toll that journey, and when Deza’s father leaves in search of work, the rest of the family soon has no choice but to follow. Despite the hardships, loss, and racism that defined the times, Deza never loses faith in her dreams or flags in her devotion to bringing her family together again. Perseverance and kindness serve Deza well, and her story is a welcome new journey into familiar territory from award-winning author Christopher Paul Curtis. --Seira Wilson

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Cracking the Ice
Cracking the Ice
David H. Hendrickson
Delves into the perilous world of a black teen hockey phenom in 1968, during the highly charged Civil Rights era. Jessie leaves home for New Hampshire, despite misgivings of his parents and girlfriend Rose, to pursue his dreams at an elite, formerly all-white prep school, which he hopes will put him on the path to the Ivy League and NHL. He is realistic about encountering racist fans and opponents at his new school, but finds that he's in the most danger from his own teammates and coach, who clearly despises him based only on the color of his skin. Full of exciting on-ice action and heart-wrenching realism, Cracking the Ice will have readers rooting for Jessie as he fights for what any standout student and athlete deserves.

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The Lily Pond (Mildred L. Batchelder Honor Books)
The Lily Pond
Linda Schenck, Annika Thor
A Mildred L. Batchelder Honor Book and an ALA-ALSC Notable Children’s Book, The Lily Pond continues the story of two Jewish sisters who left Austria during WWII/Holocaust and found refuge in Sweden.A year after Stephie Steiner and her younger sister, Nellie, left Nazi-occupied Vienna, Stephie has finally adapted to life on the rugged Swedish island where she now lives. But more change awaits Stephie: her foster parents have allowed her to enroll in school on the mainland, in Goteberg. Stephie is eager to go. Not only will she be pursuing her studies, she'll be living in a cultured city again—under the same roof as Sven, the son of the lodgers who rented her foster parents' cottage for the summer.Five years her senior, Sven dazzles Stephie with his charm, his talk of equality, and his anti-Hitler sentiments. Stephie can't help herself—she's falling in love. As she navigates a sea of new emotions, she also grapples with what it means to be beholden to others, with her constant worry about what her parents are enduring back in Vienna, and with the menacing spread of Nazi ideology, even in Sweden. In these troubled times, her true friends, Stephie discovers, are the ones she least expected.

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Joining Up
Joining Up
John Jack McGuire
Two teenage boys, backs still raw from a whipping, make their escape from a Brooklyn Orphanage to join Brooklyn's famous Red Legged Devils of the Fourteenth Regiment.. En-route to the Civil War battlefields Bobby and Will become mule train drivers with a scalawag muleskinner who runs supply wagons for a Massachusetts Regiment. The search for the Fourteenth New York leads the runaways to the farmlands of Pennsylvania where Robert E Lee is about to launch his armies of Northern Virginia against George Meade's Union Army of the Potomac. It's the eve of the biggest battle of the Civil War when the runaways finally don Union Blue.

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City of Orphans
City of Orphans
Greg Ruth, Avi
The streets of 1893 New York are full of life: crowded, filthy, dangerous. If you are a newsboy like thirteen-year- old Maks Geless, you need to watch out for Bruno, leader of the Plug Ugly Gang whose shadowy, sinister boss is plotting to take control of all the newsies on the lower East Side. With Bruno’s boys in fierce pursuit, Maks discovers Willa, a strange girl who lives alone in an alley. It is she, stick in hand, who fights off the Plug Uglies--but further dangers await. Maks must find a way to free his sister Emma from The Tombs, the city jail where she has been imprisoned for stealing a watch at the glamorous new Waldorf Hotel. Maks, believing her innocent, has only four days to prove it. Fortunately, there is Bartleby Donck, the eccentric lawyer (among other employments) to guide Maks and Willa in the art of detection. Against a backdrop alive with the sights and sounds of tenement New York, Maks, as boy detective, must confront a teeming world of wealth and crime, while struggling against powerful forces threatening new immigrants and the fabric of family love. 

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Beautiful Days (Bright Young Things)
Beautiful Days
Anna Godbersen
For the bright young things of 1929, the beautiful days seem endless, filled with romance and heartbreak, adventure and intrigue, friendship and rivalry. After a month in New York, Cordelia Grey and Letty Larkspur are small-town girls no longer. They spend their afternoons with Astrid Donal at the Greys’ lush Long Island estate and their nights in Manhattan’s bustling metropolis. But Letty’s not content to be a mere socialite. She is ready at last to chase her Broadway dreams—no matter the cost.Cordelia is still reeling from the death of her father at the hands of Thom Hale, the man she thought she loved. Now she is set to honor Darius Grey’s legacy . . . and take her revenge.Promised to Cordelia’s half brother, Astrid is caught up in a world of dazzling jewels and glittering nights—and the sparkle is blinding. Charlie Grey is a gangster playing a dangerous game; and for Astrid, Cordelia, and Letty, the stakes could be deadly.From the New York Times bestselling author of The Luxe comes the second book in an epic series set in the dizzying last summer of the Jazz Age.

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R My Name Is Rachel
R My Name Is Rachel
Patricia Reilly Giff
Top Choice
Rachel, Cassie, and Joey live in the city with their Pop, until Pop's search for work lands the family on a run down farm. Dreamy Rachel loves to read, and doesn't know much about the country. Times are hard there, too—the school and library are closed.  When Pop gets work near Canada, he has to leave the children on the farm alone. For two months! But Rachel's the oldest, and she'll make sure they're all right. Somehow.

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Torrent: A Novel (River of Time Series)
Torrent
Lisa T. Bergren
 When Gabi and Lia finally learn to surf the river of time, they realize they must make hard choices about life and love in Torrent, the third and final book in the River of Time series.  Gabi and Lia Betarrini have learned to control their time travel, and they return from medieval Italy to save their father from his tragic death in modern times. But love calls across the centuries, and the girls are determined to return forever—even though they know the Black Plague is advancing across Europe, claiming the lives of one-third of the population. In the suspenseful conclusion of the River of Time series, every decision is about life … and death.  

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Private Cathay's Secret
Private Cathay's Secret
Rebecca O. Hayes
Private Cathay's Secret depicts the determination and perseverance of a young slave girl, Cathay Williams. Thrust from her home on a Missouri plantation, she becomes a cook for the Union Army. Little does she realize this servitude throughout much of the Civil War will prepare her for her greatest challenge: impersonating a male soldier in the U. S. Army at the end of the war. Alongside her male companions, Williams endures hardships and performs her duties with them equally, during a time when women are not allowed to serve in the military. No one discovers her gender until she reveals it at the time of her discharge. Much has been written about the Buffalo Soldier 10th Cavalry, but infantry escapades are largely clouded in obscurity.

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The Auslander
The Auslander
Paul Dowswell
When Peter's parents are killed, he is sent to an orphanage in Warsaw, Poland. But Peter is Volksdeutscher-of German blood. With his blond hair and blue eyes, he looks just like the boy on the Hitler Youth poster. The Nazis decide he is racially valuable. Indeed, a prominent German family is pleased to adopt such a fine Aryan specimen into their household. But despite his new "family," Peter feels like a foreigner-an ausländer-and he is forming his own ideas about what he sees and what he's told. He doesn't want to be a Nazi. So he takes a risk-the most dangerous one he could possibly choose in 1942 Berlin. . . .Paul Dowswell weaves meticulous research into a thrilling narrative, exposing a different angle of the horrors of Nazi Germany.

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