Historical Fiction Young Readers

Being a court jester sounds perfect. Juggling! Acrobatics! Knife-throwing. It's all fun until until an attempted murder happens. In the second book in The Guardian Angel series, angel Pelagius visits AD 1351 and introduces readers to Raphael, a young man trained to be a court jester in Avignon, France. His study of juggling, acrobatics, and knife throwing is supported by his patron, the most powerful man in Europe, Pope Clement VI. But when Raphael is falsely accused of attempting to murder the pope, his talents become tools for survival as he pursues the identity of the real would–be ...

Young Reader's Shakespeare returns, with another visually stunning and brilliantly rewritten version of one of the Bard's classic plays. Julius Caesar has become such a part of our culture that many people even quote from it without realizing they are doing so: phrases such as "the dogs of war," "it's Greek to me," and "the evil that men do" have become part of everyday English.

Irene Adler is no ordinary young lady. She's at the top of the ranks in the All Souls cohort, a competitive preparatory class reserved for Oxford's brightest minds. But her peers and professors don't know she's a lady at all. To them, she is Isaac Holland. Keeping up her disguise gets trickier when All Souls students start dying, one by one. Determined to find out who's responsible for the deaths, Irene—as Isaac—teams up with fellow classmate and roommate Sherlock Holmes to track down clues

It’s 1927 and the strict laws of prohibition have done little to temper the roaring 20s nightlife, even in the nation’s capitol. Everyone knows the booze has never stopped flowing, especially amongst the rich and powerful, and seventeen-year-old Gertrude and her best friends Clara and Milly are determined to get a taste of freedom and liquor, propriety be damned. But after sneaking out of the Washington Female Seminary to visit a speakeasy, they return to discover that their controversial young headmistress, Mrs. Rose, has been murdered.

Seventeen-year-old Helena “Nell” Cusack came to New York this summer looking for a story—a real story. She dreams of one day writing hard-hitting articles for the New York Chronicle, but so far she's only managed to land a job as a lowly society reporter. That is, until Alice Austen strolls into her life, an audacious street photographer who encourages Nell to shake up polite society…and maybe also take a chance on love.

It's a dangerous time for 13-year-old Clara and her family. They have just been imprisoned in Terezin (Terezinstadt), a ghetto in a medieval town near Prague - which was built to show the world how "well" the Nazis were treating Jews during the Second World War. Here Clara encounters hunger, disease and filthy living conditions. Even worse is the constant threat of being deported to concentration camps where the possibility of death awaits her.

Raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the heart of Jim Crow, Dovey Johnson Roundtree felt the sting of inequality at an early age and made a point to speak up for justice. She was one of the first Black women to break the racial and gender barriers in the US Army when women were barely allowed to serve; a fierce attorney in the segregated courtrooms of Washington, DC; and a minister in Black churches, where women had never before had the chance to speak.

When Cat overhears a conversation about a diamond hidden somewhere in the theatre, she's determined to find the treasure. Ably assisted by Pedro, a musician in the company orchestra, she is thrust into a world of drama and intrigue, where she encounters Covent Garden street gangs, boxing matches, theatre riots and spectacular stage productions. En route, she learns a lot about who she is, and who her real friends are.

Hand in Hand presents the stories of 10 men from different eras in American history, organized chronologically to provide a scope from slavery to the modern day. The stories are accessible, fully drawn narratives offering the subjects' childhood influences, the time and place in which they lived, their accomplishments and motivations, and the legacies they left for future generations as links in the "freedom chain".

Among these biographies, listeners will find aviators and artists, politicians and pop stars, athletes and activists. The exceptional men featured include artist Aaron Douglas, civil rights leader John Lewis, dancer Alvin Ailey, filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, musician Prince, photographer Gordon Parks, tennis champion Arthur Ashe, and writer James Baldwin.

Join Amelia and Bethany on a thrilling adventure back to Ancient Egypt in The Magic Library: Seneb’s Pyramid Perils. When the girls stumble upon a magical book in their family's mysterious library, they are transported to the Old Kingdom, where they meet the wise scribe Seneb and witness the awe-inspiring construction of the pyramids. Tasked with helping Seneb recover from an illness that threatens the progress of the pyramid's construction, the sisters learn about ancient remedies, the importance of teamwork, and the ingenuity of Egyptian engineering. As they explore the bustling pyramid...

Born into slavery, young Booker T. Washington could only dream of learning to read and write. After emancipation, Booker began a 500-mile journey, mostly on foot, to Hampton Institute, taking his first of many steps toward a college degree. When he arrived, he had just 50 cents in his pocket and a dream about to come true. The young slave who once waited outside of the schoolhouse would one day become a legendary educator of freedmen.

Constance Sutton’s marriage to Thomas was one, just like many at the time, arranged by her father, and even though he was a good man to her, there was something missing. She spent her time sewing or singing, and after a few performances across Devonshire, she was invited to sing for the duke’s birthday party, something she found to be a great honor.

Young orphan Pip, downtrodden and mistreated by his guardian sister, has a terrifying meeting with an escaped convict. Soon afterwards he is invited to play at the gloomy, cobwebbed house of unhappy Miss Havisham, where he is humiliated by her beautiful ward, Estella. Pip falls in love with the girl, despite her disdain for his ignorance and rough appearance, and begins his apprenticeship to his blacksmith brother-in-law feeling ashamed of his lowly home.

The inspiring stories of six people who changed history, including Voltaire, the French writer who believed in equality for all; Charlotte Brontë, the British novelist who wrote Jane Eyre; Mark Twain, the American who wrote Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer; Jacques Prévert, the writer known in France as 'the People's Poet'; Ayn Rand, whose writing expressed her own philosophical ideas; and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who wrote about life in a Soviet Labour Camp.