Classics, Nonfiction, and Children's Literature
Candace Fleming’s The Enigma Girls: How Ten Teenagers Broke Ciphers, Kept Secrets and Helped Win World War II (Scholastic Focus, 2024) is well worth the buzz that has been spreading about it. Although labeled a young adult nonfiction book, The Enigma Girls will interest anyone interested in the intellectual challenges to defeating Germany during World
The Trumpeter of Krakow by Eric P. Kelly (published 1928) is an historical fiction novel featuring tradition, treasure, and alchemy in medieval Krakow. The Charnetski family has fled Ukraine after bandits robbed and burned their estate, and they arrive in Poland with nothing but a pumpkin in their cart. Joeseph, the young teenage son, is
The Boy Who Was by Grace Hallock (published 1928) is a uniquely organized story about the history of the Bay of Naples through the ages, each chapter using the same young goat boy (who has eternal life as a young man) as a key character. The prologue introduces the boy, named Nino, in the present
I’m a sucker for a good time travel story, so the third middle grade novel in the Mystwick School of Musicraft series, The Dark Refrain by Jessica Khoury (audiobook by Audible Originals, 2024), was definitely one I enjoyed. In this volume, Amelia Jones finds out that her grade is taking a one-month field trip to
Across So Many Seas by Ruth Behar (Nancy Paulsen Books, February 2024) is an epic historical fiction middle grade novel about Sephardic Jews, jumping from Inquisition Spain in 1492 to Turkey, Cuba, and Miami in more recent years. With narration transitioning among four young girls during these times, the novel highlighted music as a way
Matthew is a seventh-grader now required to finish his school year online, isolated from his friends, due to the COVID pandemic. Nothing could be worse than having to help his 100-year-old great-grandmother (GG) sort her belongings. But it is through his isolation with GG that Matthew learns the secrets of her life and just how
From the series title (History Smashers), it was obvious to me that Christopher Columbus and the Taino People by Kate Messner and Jose Barreiro (Random House, August 2023) was going to an accurate and historically based book about Christopher Columbus. Some books for kids glide over the negative aspects of Columbus’ journey to the Americas,
It is quite rare to see a disease like cystic fibrosis depicted in an historical fiction novel, let alone historical fiction that takes place during the middle ages! In Breath (Atheneum, November 2003), creative storyteller Donna Jo Napoli retells the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin with a twelve-year-old boy that has cystic fibrosis
The Mona Lisa Vanishes by Nicholas Day (Random House, September 2023) is a nonfiction middle grade story about the famous Mona Lisa. With alternating chapters telling the stories of the painting’s creation and its 1911 theft, The Mona Lisa Vanishes manages to capture the attention of a young reader with a friendly and humorous tone,
World War II had so many complex behind-the-scenes happenings that I am constantly surprised by the pure breadth of the war effort and the means employed to bring an end to it. Unbreakable: The Spies Who Broke the Nazi’s Secret Code by Rebecca E. F. Barone (Henry Holt, 2022) tells the story of the spies,
I love the unique style of Tomie dePaola, and I was so sad to hear that this iconic children’s illustrator passed away this year. I read Patrick: Patron Saint of Ireland by Tomie dePaola (Holiday House, 1992) two years when my daughter and I were learning Medieval history. In this biographic picture book, dePaola writes
Trapped Behind Nazi Lines by Eric Brown is a middle grade nonfiction book about a company of medics and nurses that, while flying to Italy during World War II, got lost in the clouds and ended up crash landing in Nazi-occupied Albania. The story tells how upon crash landing their airplane, they were able to
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