War Stories
Revolutionary War | Civil War | WWI | WWII | Afghanistan | Iraq War
Revolutionary War |
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The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation. Vol. 1 The Pox Party Various diaries, letters, and other manuscripts chronicle the experiences of Octavian, a young African American, as he is brought up as part of a science experiment in the years leading up to and during the Revolutionary War. Sequel: The Kindom on the Waves. subjects: Freedom, Slavery, Science Experiments, African Americans, United States-History-Revolution 1775-1783 |
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Chains After being sold to a cruel couple in New York City, a slave named Isabel spies for the rebels during the Revolutionary War. subjects: Slavery, African Americans, Spies, Slavery, United States-History-Revolution 1775-1783 |
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Johnny Tremain John Newbery Medal winner. After injuring his hand, a silversmith's apprentice in Boston becomes a messenger for the Sons of Liberty in the days before the American Revolution. subjects: United States-History-Revolution 1775-1783, Boston (Mass.)-History-Revolution 1775-1783 |
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My Brother Sam is Dead Recounts the tragedy that strikes the Meeker family during the Revolution when one son joins the rebel forces while the rest of the family tries to stay neutral in a Tory town. subjects: United States-History-Revolution 1775-1783 |
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The Rifle A priceless, handcrafted rifle, fired throughout the American Revolution, is passed down through the years until it fires on a fateful Christmas Eve of 1994. subjects: Rifles, United States-History-Revolution 1775-1783 |
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Soldier's Secret: The Story of Deborah Sampson During the Revolutionary War, a young woman named Deborah Sampson disguises herself as a man in order to serve in the Continental Army. subjects: Disguise, Sex Role, Soldiers, United States-History-Revolution 1775-1783 |
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The Year of the Hangman In 1777, having been kidnapped and taken forcibly from England to the American colonies, fifteen-year-old Creighton becomes part of developments in the political unrest there that may spell defeat for the patriots and change the course of history. subjects: United States-History-Revolution 1775-1783 |
Civil War |
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Across Five Aprils Young Jethro Creighton grows from a boy to a man when he is left to take care of the family farm in Illinois during the difficult years of the Civil War. subjects: United States-History-Civil War-1861-1865 |
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Bull Run Northerners, Southerners, generals, couriers, dreaming boys, and worried sisters describe the glory, the horror, the thrill, and the disillusionment of the first battle of the Civil War. subjects: Bull Run-1st Battle of Va., United States-History-Civil War-1861-1865 |
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Red Moon at Sharpsburg: A Novel As the Civil War breaks out, India, a young Southern girl, summons her sharp intelligence and the courage she didn't know she had to survive the war that threatens to destroy her family, her Virginia home, and the only life she has ever known. subjects: United States-History-Civil War-1861-1865 |
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Red Badge of Courage During his service in the Civil War, a young Union soldier matures to manhood and finds peace of mind as he comes to grips with his conflicting emotions about war. subjects: United States-History-Civil War-1861-1865, Chancellorsville (Va.)-Battle of-1863 |
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Rifles for Watie The story of Jeff Bussey, a farm boy living in 1861, who joins the Union army and goes on an important mission to discover how Stand Watie and his Confederate Cherokee Rebels are receiving repeating rifles from northern manufacturers. subjects: United States-History-Civil War-1861-1865 |
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Two Girls of Gettysburg When the Civil War breaks out, two cousins, Lizzie and Rosanna, find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict until the war reunites them in the town of Gettysburg. subjects: Friendship, Cousins, United States-History-Civil War-1861-1865 |
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With Every Drop of Blood While trying to transport food to Richmond, Virginia, during the Civil War, fourteen-year-old Johnny is captured by a black Union soldier. subjects: Race Relations, African Americans, United States-History-Civil War-1861-1865 |
World War I (WWI) |
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The Foreshadowing Having always been able to know when someone is going to die, Alexandra poses as a nurse to go to France during World War I to locate her brother and to try to save him from the fate she has foreseen for him. subjects: Extrasensory Perception, Nurses, World War-1914-1918 |
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Hattie Big Sky After inheriting her uncle's homesteading claim in Montana, sixteen-year-old orphan Hattie Brooks travels from Iowa in 1917 to make a home for herself and encounters some unexpected problems related to the war being fought in Europe. subjects: Self-Reliance, Frontier and Pioneer Life, Orphans, World War-1914-1918 |
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Megiddo's Shadow After the death of his beloved older brother Hector in World War I, sixteen-year-old Edward leaves the family farm in Canada to enlist in Hector's battalion, where he attempts to come to terms with what has happened. subjects: Brothers, World War-1914-1918 |
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Pictures, 1918 Coming of age in a rural Texas community in 1918, fifteen-year-old Asia assists in the local war effort, contemplates romance with a local boy, and expands her horizons through her pursuit of photography. subjects: Photography, Country Life, Texas, World War-1914-1918 |
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Private Peaceful When Thomas Peaceful's older brother is forced to join the British Army, Thomas decides to sign up as well, although he is only fourteen years old, to prove himself to his country, his family, his childhood love, Molly, and himself. subjects: Single Parent Families, Poverty, Soldiers, People With Mental Disabilities, World War-1914-1918 |
World War (WWII) |
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Aleutian Sparrow An Aleutian Islander recounts her suffering during World War II in American internment camps designed to "protect" the population from the invading Japanese. subjects: Aleuts, Racially Mixed People, World War 1939-1945, Concentration Camps |
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The Book Thief Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors. subjects: Books and Reading, Storytelling, Death, Jews-Germany-History-1933-1945, World War 1939-1945, Germany |
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The Boy Who Dared In October, 1942, seventeen-year-old Helmuth Hübener, imprisoned for distributing anti-Nazi leaflets, recalls his past life and how he came to dedicate himself to bring the truth about Hitler and the war to the German people. subjects: Courage, Anti-Nazi Movement, Germany-History-1933-1945, World War 1939-1945 |
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Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two After being taught in a boarding school run by whites that Navajo is a useless language, Ned Begay and other Navajo men are recruited by the Marines to become Code Talkers, sending messages during World War II in their native tongue. subjects: Navajo Language, Cryptography, Navajo Indians, Indians of North America-Southwest, United States Marine Corps, World War 1939-1945 |
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Flygirl During World War II, a light-skinned African American girl "passes" for white in order to join the Women Air Force Service Pilots. subjects: Women Air Force Service Pilots (U.S.), African Americans, World War 1939-1945 |
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Tamar In England in 1995, fifteen-year-old Tamar, grief-stricken by the puzzling death of her beloved grandfather, slowly begins to uncover the secrets of his life in the Dutch resistance during the last year of the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, and the climactic events that forever cast a shadow on his life and that of his family. subjects: Grandfathers, Guilt, Netherlands, England, World War 1939-1945 |
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When My Name Was Keoko With national pride and occasional fear, a brother and sister face the increasingly oppressive occupation of Korea by Japan during World War II, which threatens to suppress Korean culture entirely. subjects: Korea History 1910-1945, Family Life-Korea, Military Occupation, Patriotism, Courage, World War 1939-1945-Underground Movements-Korea |
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Under the Blood Red Sun Tomikazu Nakaji's biggest concerns are baseball, homework, and a local bully, until life with his Japanese family in Hawaii changes drastically after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Sequel: House of the Red Fish. subjects: Pearl Harbor (Hawaii)-Attack on-1941, World War 1939-1945, Japanese Americans, Hawaii |
Vietnam War |
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All the Broken Pieces Two years after being airlifted out of Vietnam in 1975, Matt Pin is haunted by the terrible secret he left behind and, now, in a loving adoptive home in the United States, a series of profound events forces him to confront his past. subjects: Vietnamese Americans, Adoption, Novels in Verse, Vietnam War 1961-1975 |
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Cracker!: The Best Dog in Vietnam A young soldier in Vietnam bonds with his bomb-sniffing dog. subjects: German Shepherd Dog-War Use, Dogs-War Use, Human-Animal Relationships, Vietnam War 1961-1975 |
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Fallen Angels Seventeen-year-old Richie Perry, just out of his Harlem high school, enlists in the Army in the summer of 1967 and spends a devastating year on active duty in Vietnam. subjects: Vietnamese Conflict 1961-1975 |
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Search and Destroy Recent high school graduate Rick Ward, undecided about his future and eager to escape his unhappy home life, joins the army and experiences the horrors of the war in Vietnam. subjects: Vietnam War 1961-1975 |
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Shooting the Moon When her brother is sent to fight in Vietnam, twelve-year-old Jamie begins to reconsider the army world that she has grown up in. subjects: United States Army, Military Bases, Children of Military Personnel, Separation (Psychology), Soldiers, Vietnam War 1961-1975 |
Afghanistan |
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Refugees Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Dawn, a sixteen-year-old runaway from San Francisco, connects by phone and email with Johar, a gentle, fifteen-year-old Afghani who assists Dawn's foster mother, a doctor, at a Red Cross refugee camp in Peshawar. subjects: Refugees, Runaways, Musicians, September 11 Terrorist Attacks 2001, Afghanistan, New York (N.Y.) |
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Under the Persimmon Tree During the 2001 Afghan War, the lives of Najmal, a young refugee from Kunduz, Afghanistan, and Nusrat, an American-Muslim teacher who is awaiting her husband's return from Mazar-i-Sharif, intersect at a school in Peshawar, Pakistan. subjects: Afghan War 2001, Refugees |
Iraq War, 2003 |
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High Dive With her mother stationed in Iraq as an Army nurse, Vanderbilt University student Arden Vogel, whose father was killed in a traffic accident a few years earlier, impulsively ends up on a tour of Europe with a group of college girls she meets on her way to attend to some family business in Sardinia. subjects: Vacations, Single Parent Families, Friendship, Iraq War 2003, Loss (Psychology) |
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Sunrise Over Fallujah Robin Perry, from Harlem, is sent to Iraq in 2003 as a member of the Civilian Affairs Battalion, and his time there profoundly changes him. subjects: Iraq War 2003, War, African Americans |
List updated August 2009—Patti Cook
