Historical Fiction

Hesse, Karen
Witness
Scholastic Press
2001
5th-6th grade

Summary: A series of poems express the views of various people in a small Vermont town, including a young black girl and a young Jewish girl, during the early 1920s when the Ku Klux Klan is trying to infiltrate the town.

Strengths: It was an interesting way to write a book with various points of views using poems. It gave a good bit of information regarding the historical time period. I am glad that Karen Hesse included a character page in the front of the book for reference.

Concerns: I did not fully understand why there were acts in the book. I do not think there was really a need for them. Sometimes it was a little confusing when the characters were talking. They wouldn't explain things all the way sometimes and I had to keep referring to the character page in the beginning because there were so many characters to keep track of.

Classroom Use: This book could be a good example to show examples of free verse poems, point of views, or a historical fiction around the time of the 1920s.



Peck, Richard
The River Between Us
Dial Books
2003
6th

Summary: During the early days of the Civil War, the Pruitt family takes in two mysterious young girls who have fled New Orleans to come north to Illinois.

Strengths: The reader can tell there was a lot of research that went into the book. There are names of places/objects that were relevant during the Civil War and I think this technique adds to the life of the story.

Concerns: The story can get slow at parts and may make a reader become uninterested especially in the first paragraph. It may also confuse readers to jump from a time in the past and then to a time even further in the past.

Classroom Use: This book may be mentioned during/ after a unit on the Civil War as an example of a historical fiction account of living through the Civil War.

Speare, Elizabeth George
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Houghton Mifflin Company Boston
1958
5th-6th

Summary: The story of a girl from Barbados who travels to New England after the death of her grandfather. There are many exciting events throughout the story including accusations of being a witch and love.

Strengths: The story has a lot of interesting events and happenings to keep a reader entertained. The book is especially for young girls, whom I think would enjoy the love-relationship between Kit and Nat.

Concerns: The idea of a witch can make parents feel uncomfortable or angry when they appear in children's books because of religious or personal beliefs.

Classroom use: This book would be a good choice story to keep in the classroom library as long as the parents have ok'd it.

Multicultural
Capital Choice
Henderson, Kathy
LugalBanda: The Boy who got Caught up in a War
Candlewick Press
2006
3rd-4th

Summary: The story of Lugalbanda who helps his brothers and King Enmerkar to escape war and instead find peace through some help.

Strengths: the beginning of the book was a little slow but it really picked up when Lugalbanda met the Anzu bird. There were also many pictures that children would enjoy.

Concerns: The story is on the fairly long side so it is a more appropriate book for an older reader. I did not think splitting the book up into chapters was necessary either.

Classroom Use: This would be a fun read-aloud book to do with a second or third grade class to involve some multicultural aspect into reading.


Choi, Sook Nyul
Year of Impossible Goodbyes
Houghton Mifflin Company
1991
5th-6th

Summary:A young Korean firl survives the oppressive Japanese and Russian occupation of North Korea during the 1940s, to later escape to freedom in South Korea.

Strengths: The book provides a good account into a young girl's experience during the Vietnam War. It provides real emotion and details into what it must have been like to live in North Korea during Vietnam.

Concerns: The book is very slow. It would take a very determined reader to continue and finish the work.

Classroom Use: The book could provide students an example of what a child might feel like during a war.