Beginning in late elementary school and on through middle and high school, I pored over any book that could take me out of my own time period and into another. Nineteenth century America, medieval Britain, World War II Europe were all fair game. I would happily zip back and forth between centuries and continents, just so long as I could go somewhere (or somewhen) else. At the time, I would not have known the difference between a well researched historical fiction novel and a bad one, and I’m sure I absorbed plenty of historical inaccuracies, none of which dampened my enjoyment—or my interest in learning about non-fictionalized history.
Later, as a teacher, I noticed that some students who were unmoved by fantasy, teen romance, or “realistic” school stories would light up if given a book about “real” events. Some students devoured reading materials about war, others liked books about historic disasters and tragedies, and still others preferred “slice of life” books about “how people lived back then.” Often, when different elements mixed—for example, when a novel like The Summer of My German Soldier introduced the domestic life of the home front to my World War II strategy fanatics, or when a book like Red Scarf Girl allowed students to simultaneously learn about the Chinese Cultural Revolution and to experience a personal memoir—students became more open to other genres and interested in other aspects of the reading beyond the history.
More and more good historical fiction for young readers has become available in recent years. Much of it is based on memoir or primary documents like diaries, which is appealing to those readers who like to think that they are reading a “true” story. Increasingly, historical tales are told in a variety of forms—there are novels for the lovers of a straightforward story, but there are also stories told in poems and in illustrated diary format. Here is a small selection of recent publications for middle-grade and teen readers. These books represent a wide range of places, times, and events, and also a wide range of writing styles, but all of them will successfully transport readers who wish to inhabit other times and learn about other places.
Take Me With You by Carolyn Marsden (Candlewick Press, 2010. Ages 10 and up.) Pina and Susanna have always been best friends, and family, too, since they live together at the Neapolitan home for abandoned children. But now that World War II is over, their friendship might be threatened.
The Year of Goodbyes by Debbie Levy (Hyperion 2010. Ages 10 and up.) German schoolgirls kept poesiealbums, scrapbooks for their friends to record notes, drawings, and favorite quotes. For Jutta Salzberg, in the year 1938, the poesiealbum was primarily a place for her Jewish friends and relatives to record farewells, warnings, and wishes for better times.
Ninth Ward by Jewell Parker Rhodes (Little, Brown, and Company, 2010. Ages 10 and up.) 
Lanesha is accustomed to being teased and left out of everything. After all, everyone in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward knows she was born with a caul, that she talks to ghosts, and that she has grown up with Mama Ya-ya, who sees the future.
Three Rivers Rising: A Novel of the Johnstown Flood by Jame Richards. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. $16.99. Ages 12 and upEveryone who lives around Lake Conemaugh says that one of these days the dam will break. They all say it-the well-heeled businessmen who vacation at the South Fork Club, the villagers down in Conemaugh, the miners further down the river in Johnstown-but nobody really believes it. But in the spring of 1889, people begin to believe.
City of Cannibals by Ricki Thompson. (Boyds Mill Press, 2010. Ages 13-17)
Dell’s depressed, drunken father has always warned her about London, the City of Cannibals; after all, it was the vices and lechery of King Henry VIII that forced her beautiful mother’s escape from court and then to her death at the hands of the King’s soldiers.
