Did you ever wonder what was it like to live a long time ago? Here's your chance to find out! These books are fiction, meaning that most of the people are made up by the authors, but the authors did a lot of research first to make sure what they wrote was based on things that really did happen! So dive in and find out what it would have been like if you lived in the United States 30, 100, even 300 years ago!
Child fiction book, e-book in Spanish and English, audiobook on CD, and e-audiobook in Spanish (Hoopla) and English (Overdrive). Esperanza and her mother are forced to leave their life of wealth and privilege in Mexico to go work in the labor camps of Southern California, where they must adapt to the harsh circumstances facing Mexican farm workers on the eve of the Great Depression. Grade: 5+
Child fiction book. France sends the Merci Train to the United States to thank America for helping France during and after WWII, and one of the train stops will be the small town of Gladiola, Texas, where ten-year-old Glory Bea hopes for the greatest miracle--that her missing-in-action father will be on the train. Grade: 3+
Child e-book, and audiobook on CD. During a summer spent at Rockaway Beach in 1944, Lily's friendship with a young Hungarian refugee causes her to see the war and her own world differently. Grade: 5+
Child fiction book, and e-audiobook. During World War II, after moving with her parents to Willow Run, Michigan, when her father gets a job in the B-24 bomber-building factory, eleven-year-old Meggie learns about different kinds of bravery from all of the people around her. Grade: 4+
Child fiction book. During World War II, seven-year-old Merry Primrose Ramsay is sent from England to live with relatives in the United States, where, despite missing her parents and feeling homesick, she has many adventures while going to school and learning to fish and knit. Grade: 2+
Child fiction book. A Jewish family fleeing Nazi Germany in 1938 endures innumerable separations before they are once again united. Grade: 4+
Child fiction book. When France falls to Germany at the start of World War II, nine-year-old Claudine must leave her beloved parents and friends to stay with relatives in America, accompanied by her doll, Violette. Grade: 3+
Child fiction book, e-book in English and Spanish, and e-audiobook. Sand flew up into Danny's eyes, and then from behind him, a huge explosion seemed to shatter the world. The force lifted Danny off his feet and threw him onto the ground. Then Danny couldn't hear anything at all. Part of the I Survived series. Grade: 4+
Child fiction book, e-book, and e-audiobook. In 1953 ten-year-old Octobia May lives in her Aunt's boarding house in the South, surrounded by an African American community which has its own secrets and internal racism, and spends her days wondering if Mr. Davenport in room 204 is really a vampire--or something else entirely. Grade: 3+
Child fiction book, and e-audiobook. Chronicles the close friendship between two Japanese-American sisters growing up in rural Georgia during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the despair when one sister becomes terminally ill. Grade: 6+
Child fiction book. and e-book. Sent to live with relatives on their farm because of his unhappy home life, an eleven-year-old city boy meets his distant cousin Harris and is given an introduction to a whole new world. Grade: 6+
Child fiction book. During the summer of 1953, thirteen-year-old Marty's parents are suspected of communist sympathies, upending his life and causing him to question what it really means to be a patriotic American. Grade: 5+
Child fiction book. In 1952 eleven-year-old Azalea is sent to Paris Junction, Arkansas, to help out her grandmother who has injured her foot, but does not really seem to want her help. Billy Wong, a Chinese-American boy whose uncle owns the local grocery store, is in town to attend the "white" school, since the Chinese mission school has closed. Billy is frustrated by the overt prejudice of the local children, but over the summer the two begin to forge a friendship. Grade: 4+