ADVANCED CLASS
This is a partial list of available books for the first quarter reading requirement. Any historical fiction or non-fiction relating to America in Colonial and Revolutionary times (including government) would be acceptable.
Highly Recommended Series - Unknown grade level. Sparrowhawk
Colonial North America
Joseph Bruchac, Winter People (2002), about a fourteen-year-old Abenaki Indian boy in Canada who must rescue his mother and sisters after they are kidnapped in a Rogers' Rangers attack in 1759.
Jane Louise Curry, Dark Shade (1998), about a sixteen-year-old girl of the present day who travels in time back to 1758 and finds herself in the middle of the French and Indian War.
Walter D. Edmonds, The Matchlock Gun (1941), about a boy in Colonial New York who wonders if he will be capable of using his father's gun to protect his mother and sister in case of an Indian raid. Recommended for ages 9-12.
Diane Matcheck, The Sacrifice (1998), about a fifteen-year-old Plains Indian girl who decides to avenge her father's death.
Ann Rinaldi, The Color of Fire (2005), about a white indentured servant in New York who works alongside a black slave who is accused of treason and sentenced to death after a series of fires break out. Recommended for ages 9-12.
Ann Rinaldi, The Second Bend in the River (1997), about a girl from a family of Ohio pioneers who falls in love with the Indian leader Tecumseh.
Ann Rinaldi, Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons: The Story of Phillis Wheatley (1996), about Phillis Wheatley, who was captured in Africa and sold into slavery and went on to become the first African American poet.
Anya Seton, Smouldering Fires (1975), about a twentieth-century high school girl with a phobia about fire who has vivid memories of a past life as an Acadian woman in eighteenth-century Connecticut.
The American Revolution and After.
Laurie Halse Anderson, Chains (2008), about a girl slave sold to a master loyal to England during the American Revolution, who must decide whether to become a spy for the American rebels. BBYA, SOA. Review
Laurie Halse Anderson, Forge (2010), about an escaped slave who becomes a soldier with the American Patriots during the Revolutionary War; sequel to Chains.
Laurie Halse Anderson, Fever, 1793 (2000), about a sixteen-year-old girl trying to find her mother during an epidemic of yellow fever in 1793 Philadelphia. Recommended for grades 6-9. BBYA.
M.T. Anderson, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume 1: The Pox Party (2006), about a boy who believes he is an African prince and is raised in an eccentric American scientific institution during the years leading up to the Revolutionary War; also appreciated by adult readers. NBA, BBYA, PHB. Review
M.T. Anderson, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves (2008), about a boy who escapes from slavery and joins the British Army during the American Revolution to take advantage of their promise of freedom; also appreciated by adult readers. BBYA.
Avi, The Fighting Ground (1994), about a thirteen-year-old boy during the American Revolutionary War. SOA. Recommended for ages 9-12.
Jean Rae Baxter, The Way Lies North (2007), about a fifteen-year-old girl from a family loyal to the British who is driven from her home by violence at the beginning of the American Revolution.
Gary L. Blackwood, Year of the Hangman (2002), alternative history about an English teenager exiled to the American Colonies after the American Revolution fails in 1777. BBYA.
James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier, My Brother Sam is Dead (1985), about a teenager who must decide whether to remain loyal to the British like his father or to join the American rebels like his brother during the Revolutionary War. NA. Recommended for ages 12 and up. (Warning: there are spoilers in the Good Reads reviews.)
Cameron Dokey, Katherine: Heart of Freedom (1997), about a sixteen-year-old Boston girl with a loyalist mother and a patriot father, who decides to hide a young patriot in her room to protect him from his loyalist pursuers; #1 in the Hearts and Dreams series.
Cameron Dokey, Charlotte: Heart of Hope (1997), about a girl sent from the Indiana frontier during the War of 1812 to live in Baltimore with her aunt, where she finds life is not much safer; #2 in the Hearts and Dreams series.
Cameron Dokey, Stephanie: Heart of Gold (1998), about a girl who stows away on a ship bound for California during the Gold Rush after her father sends the boy she loves there to keep them apart; #3 in the Hearts and Dreams series.
Cameron Dokey, Carrie: Heart of Courage (1998), about a timid sixteen-year-old who finds courage during the Great Chicago Fire of 1871; #4 in the Hearts and Dreams series.
L.M. Elliott, Give Me Liberty (2006), about a thirteen-year-old boy, an indentured servant in Virginia, who meets a kind schoolmaster on the eve of the Revolutionary War.
Joan Elizabeth Goodman, Hope's Crossing (1998), about a thirteen-year-old girl kidnapped from her father's farm by British soldiers hoping for ransom money during the Revolutionary War.
Karen Hawkins, Catherine and the Pirate (2002), historical romance about a seventeen-year-old Boston girl who decides to deliver the ransom herself after her brother is kidnapped.
Lou Kassem, The Innkeeper's Daughter (1996), about a girl who works in her father's inn, where she overhears a potentially dangerous secret.
Sheila Soloman Klass, Soldier’s Secret: The Story of Deborah Sampson (2009), about Deborah Sampson, who disguised herself as a boy in order to fight in the Continental Army for American freedom.
William Lavender, Just Jane (2002), about an English earl's orphaned daughter who arrives in America in 1776 as the Revolutionary War begins, dividing her family's loyalties.
Elizabeth Massie, 1776: Son of Liberty (2000), about a sixteen-year-old Maryland boy, a free black, who wonders whether the American Revolution will be of any help to his friends who are slaves.
Anna Myers, Spy (2008), about a boy torn between keeping a deathbed promise to his loyalist father never to join the American rebels and thinking for himself, as his schoolteacher Nathan Hale urges him to do.
Gary Paulsen, Woods Runner (2010), about a thirteen-year-old boy who returns from hunting meat for his family to find their settlement burned, their neighbors dead, and his parents taken prisoner by the British.
Ann Rinaldi, Or Give Me Death (2003), about the daughter of the American rebel Patrick Henry and the family secrets she knows.
Ann Rinaldi, Taking Liberty (2002), about a girl who is a house servant - a slave - for George and Martha Washington and begins to question her life.
Ann Rinaldi, Cast Two Shadows (1998), about a fourteen-year-old girl in South Carolina and her experiences during the American Revolution.
Ann Rinaldi, The Secret of Sarah Revere (1995), about the thirteen-year-old daughter of hero Paul Revere and the secret she knows that her father's new wife does not.
Ann Rinaldi, Finishing Becca (1994), about a Philadelphia girl whose path crosses fatefully with that of Benedict Arnold.
Ann Rinaldi, The Fifth of March: A Story of the Boston Massacre (1993), about a servant girl who must choose between her loyalty to her employers, the John Adams family, and her friendship with a British soldier.
Ann Rinaldi, A Ride into Morning (1991), about a girl struggling to care for her ailing mother while maintaining the family farm, who is faced with a risky choice when a soldier demands her horse in exchange for not turning her brother in to the authorities for rum-running.
Ann Rinaldi, Time Enough for Drums (1986), about a sixteen-year-old girl in Trenton, New Jersey, whose family supports the American patriots, but whose attractive tutor is a loyalist.
Ann Rinaldi, A Stitch in Time (1994), about a girl who decides to make a quilt to help keep her family together as they begin to take separate paths in life; #1 in the Quilt trilogy.
Ann Rinaldi, Broken Days (1995), about a girl who wants to stop a half-Shawnee girl from taking a place in her grandfather's affections; #2 in the Quilt trilogy.
Ann Rinaldi, The Blue Door (1999), about a girl who travels north to work in her great-grandfather's textile mill and heal generations of family wounds; #3 in the Quilt trilogy.
Ann Rinaldi, The Family Greene (2010), about a girl who learns that her mother, once a beautiful woman who lifted soldiers' spirits at Valley Forge, may have done more than just flirt.
Betsy Sterman, Saratoga Secret (1998), about a sixteen-year-old farm girl given the responsibility of delivering a message to warn the Continental army that the British are planning an attack, as she tries to make up her mind which of two boys to give her heart to.
Betsy Urban, Waiting for Deliverance (2000), about a fourteen-year-old indentured servant who questions her feelings for an attractive Indian, her master's adoptive brother.
Allan Wolf, New Found Land: Lewis and Clark's Voyage of Discovery (2004), about fourteen members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and their westward journey of exploration across the American Continent. BBYA.
Joseph Bruchac, Winter People (2002), about a fourteen-year-old Abenaki Indian boy in Canada who must rescue his mother and sisters after they are kidnapped in a Rogers' Rangers attack in 1759.
Jane Louise Curry, Dark Shade (1998), about a sixteen-year-old girl of the present day who travels in time back to 1758 and finds herself in the middle of the French and Indian War.
Walter D. Edmonds, The Matchlock Gun (1941), about a boy in Colonial New York who wonders if he will be capable of using his father's gun to protect his mother and sister in case of an Indian raid. Recommended for ages 9-12.
Diane Matcheck, The Sacrifice (1998), about a fifteen-year-old Plains Indian girl who decides to avenge her father's death.
Ann Rinaldi, The Color of Fire (2005), about a white indentured servant in New York who works alongside a black slave who is accused of treason and sentenced to death after a series of fires break out. Recommended for ages 9-12.
Ann Rinaldi, The Second Bend in the River (1997), about a girl from a family of Ohio pioneers who falls in love with the Indian leader Tecumseh.
Ann Rinaldi, Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons: The Story of Phillis Wheatley (1996), about Phillis Wheatley, who was captured in Africa and sold into slavery and went on to become the first African American poet.
Anya Seton, Smouldering Fires (1975), about a twentieth-century high school girl with a phobia about fire who has vivid memories of a past life as an Acadian woman in eighteenth-century Connecticut.
The American Revolution and After.
Laurie Halse Anderson, Chains (2008), about a girl slave sold to a master loyal to England during the American Revolution, who must decide whether to become a spy for the American rebels. BBYA, SOA. Review
Laurie Halse Anderson, Forge (2010), about an escaped slave who becomes a soldier with the American Patriots during the Revolutionary War; sequel to Chains.
Laurie Halse Anderson, Fever, 1793 (2000), about a sixteen-year-old girl trying to find her mother during an epidemic of yellow fever in 1793 Philadelphia. Recommended for grades 6-9. BBYA.
M.T. Anderson, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume 1: The Pox Party (2006), about a boy who believes he is an African prince and is raised in an eccentric American scientific institution during the years leading up to the Revolutionary War; also appreciated by adult readers. NBA, BBYA, PHB. Review
M.T. Anderson, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves (2008), about a boy who escapes from slavery and joins the British Army during the American Revolution to take advantage of their promise of freedom; also appreciated by adult readers. BBYA.
Avi, The Fighting Ground (1994), about a thirteen-year-old boy during the American Revolutionary War. SOA. Recommended for ages 9-12.
Jean Rae Baxter, The Way Lies North (2007), about a fifteen-year-old girl from a family loyal to the British who is driven from her home by violence at the beginning of the American Revolution.
Gary L. Blackwood, Year of the Hangman (2002), alternative history about an English teenager exiled to the American Colonies after the American Revolution fails in 1777. BBYA.
James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier, My Brother Sam is Dead (1985), about a teenager who must decide whether to remain loyal to the British like his father or to join the American rebels like his brother during the Revolutionary War. NA. Recommended for ages 12 and up. (Warning: there are spoilers in the Good Reads reviews.)
Cameron Dokey, Katherine: Heart of Freedom (1997), about a sixteen-year-old Boston girl with a loyalist mother and a patriot father, who decides to hide a young patriot in her room to protect him from his loyalist pursuers; #1 in the Hearts and Dreams series.
Cameron Dokey, Charlotte: Heart of Hope (1997), about a girl sent from the Indiana frontier during the War of 1812 to live in Baltimore with her aunt, where she finds life is not much safer; #2 in the Hearts and Dreams series.
Cameron Dokey, Stephanie: Heart of Gold (1998), about a girl who stows away on a ship bound for California during the Gold Rush after her father sends the boy she loves there to keep them apart; #3 in the Hearts and Dreams series.
Cameron Dokey, Carrie: Heart of Courage (1998), about a timid sixteen-year-old who finds courage during the Great Chicago Fire of 1871; #4 in the Hearts and Dreams series.
L.M. Elliott, Give Me Liberty (2006), about a thirteen-year-old boy, an indentured servant in Virginia, who meets a kind schoolmaster on the eve of the Revolutionary War.
Joan Elizabeth Goodman, Hope's Crossing (1998), about a thirteen-year-old girl kidnapped from her father's farm by British soldiers hoping for ransom money during the Revolutionary War.
Karen Hawkins, Catherine and the Pirate (2002), historical romance about a seventeen-year-old Boston girl who decides to deliver the ransom herself after her brother is kidnapped.
Lou Kassem, The Innkeeper's Daughter (1996), about a girl who works in her father's inn, where she overhears a potentially dangerous secret.
Sheila Soloman Klass, Soldier’s Secret: The Story of Deborah Sampson (2009), about Deborah Sampson, who disguised herself as a boy in order to fight in the Continental Army for American freedom.
William Lavender, Just Jane (2002), about an English earl's orphaned daughter who arrives in America in 1776 as the Revolutionary War begins, dividing her family's loyalties.
Elizabeth Massie, 1776: Son of Liberty (2000), about a sixteen-year-old Maryland boy, a free black, who wonders whether the American Revolution will be of any help to his friends who are slaves.
Anna Myers, Spy (2008), about a boy torn between keeping a deathbed promise to his loyalist father never to join the American rebels and thinking for himself, as his schoolteacher Nathan Hale urges him to do.
Gary Paulsen, Woods Runner (2010), about a thirteen-year-old boy who returns from hunting meat for his family to find their settlement burned, their neighbors dead, and his parents taken prisoner by the British.
Ann Rinaldi, Or Give Me Death (2003), about the daughter of the American rebel Patrick Henry and the family secrets she knows.
Ann Rinaldi, Taking Liberty (2002), about a girl who is a house servant - a slave - for George and Martha Washington and begins to question her life.
Ann Rinaldi, Cast Two Shadows (1998), about a fourteen-year-old girl in South Carolina and her experiences during the American Revolution.
Ann Rinaldi, The Secret of Sarah Revere (1995), about the thirteen-year-old daughter of hero Paul Revere and the secret she knows that her father's new wife does not.
Ann Rinaldi, Finishing Becca (1994), about a Philadelphia girl whose path crosses fatefully with that of Benedict Arnold.
Ann Rinaldi, The Fifth of March: A Story of the Boston Massacre (1993), about a servant girl who must choose between her loyalty to her employers, the John Adams family, and her friendship with a British soldier.
Ann Rinaldi, A Ride into Morning (1991), about a girl struggling to care for her ailing mother while maintaining the family farm, who is faced with a risky choice when a soldier demands her horse in exchange for not turning her brother in to the authorities for rum-running.
Ann Rinaldi, Time Enough for Drums (1986), about a sixteen-year-old girl in Trenton, New Jersey, whose family supports the American patriots, but whose attractive tutor is a loyalist.
Ann Rinaldi, A Stitch in Time (1994), about a girl who decides to make a quilt to help keep her family together as they begin to take separate paths in life; #1 in the Quilt trilogy.
Ann Rinaldi, Broken Days (1995), about a girl who wants to stop a half-Shawnee girl from taking a place in her grandfather's affections; #2 in the Quilt trilogy.
Ann Rinaldi, The Blue Door (1999), about a girl who travels north to work in her great-grandfather's textile mill and heal generations of family wounds; #3 in the Quilt trilogy.
Ann Rinaldi, The Family Greene (2010), about a girl who learns that her mother, once a beautiful woman who lifted soldiers' spirits at Valley Forge, may have done more than just flirt.
Betsy Sterman, Saratoga Secret (1998), about a sixteen-year-old farm girl given the responsibility of delivering a message to warn the Continental army that the British are planning an attack, as she tries to make up her mind which of two boys to give her heart to.
Betsy Urban, Waiting for Deliverance (2000), about a fourteen-year-old indentured servant who questions her feelings for an attractive Indian, her master's adoptive brother.
Allan Wolf, New Found Land: Lewis and Clark's Voyage of Discovery (2004), about fourteen members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and their westward journey of exploration across the American Continent. BBYA.