Children's Historical Fiction

[osprey_archer]

I've been reworking my Fourth of July book, having decided that the way to salvage it is to introduce a new love interest, a love interest who is also a bookworm, endless book talk being as we all know the most romantic thing in the world. I'm thinking I really will create a series called Romances for Book-Lovers. I think that really sums up the appeal of these books.

The heroine is a soon-to-be fourth-grade teacher, while the hero is the director of a local history museum. Naturally, they talk about children's historical fiction, which fortuitously I've read a whole bunch of.

The Little House books, Caddie Woodlawn, Rascal and Johnny Tremain, Catherine, Called Birdy - although I think I should focus mainly on historical fiction set in the US, this being a Fourth of July book; I'll have to wait for another book to get my Rosemary Sutcliff on.

I won't be able to talk The Montmaray Chronicles or Code Name Verity either. Damn. But I guess those are too complicated for most fourth graders, anyway.

Where was I? The Witch of Blackbird Pond, naturally. The American Girl books and the Dear America series will probably come in for a mention. (Are they still publishing new Dear America books? I loooooooved the Dear America books. They may be responsible for my affection for diary-formatted books. ...Okay, I went and looked it up, and they seem to have re-released the books with uglier covers. Why would they do that? The books had perfectly good covers and the publisher replaced them with these horrid cheap-looking computer-generated portraits.

I thought I had read a whole bunch of these, but looking at the series list on Wikipedia, it looks like I only read the first few. I was an unsystematic reader when I was eleven.)

And I've read Summer of My German Soldier, but I didn't like that very much so I'll probably pass it gracefully by. There's definitely going to be at least one scene devoted to decrying Out of the Dust, though. My charity does not extend to leaving that book unscathed.

This isn't everything I've read, naturally, just the ones that are coming to mind at the moment. Is there anything else that I just have to read for this? You know, for research?

...I'm going to have to read Ann Rinaldi, aren't I? Damn.

Comments

[evelyn-b.livejournal.com]

Ooo, tell me what's wrong with Out of the Dust! I've never read it, but it turns up at the bookstore a lot, looking kind of miserable and award-winning, like a dog is about to show up out of the dust and get shot.

Book talk is the most romantic thing. I'm aware that it's possible to say that sentence ironically, but actually it's just a non-ironic fact about my life.

I can't remember if you've read the Betsy-Tacy books -- they're not historical so much as nostalgic, but they take place in the past and a certain subset of fourth-graders (i.e., me) loves them. And A Tree Grows in Brooklyn! Very bittersweet American Dream.

Catherine Called Birdy is just damn good. The author wrote another book, The Ballad of Lucy Whipple about a girl in the American West, but I haven't read it.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

There is no dog in Out of the Dust, probably because a dog would briefly relieve the unrelenting grimness of the story, even though it would have inevitably died at the end. Billie Jo lives with her mother and father on a farm that is blowing away in the Dust Bowl; she got her name because her father really, really wanted a boy, and I guess couldn't be bothered to hide his disappointment.

Then a can of kerosene that was sitting by the stove catches fire! And Billie Jo throws it out the door! Only her mom is just around the door at the time, and catches fire, and dies in slow agony! And Billie Jo's hands are so badly burned that she can't even give her mother a sip of water to help! And also her mother was pregnant! With a boy!

In summary it's so OTT that it becomes kind of grimly hilarious, but the book is so sad. It's like an epic wallow in sadness. It won the Newbery Medal.

I read the first few Betsy-Tacy books, but loooong ago - I remember there was one where they met a little (Armenian?) refugee girl, and another where they go to the theater together. I think after that Betsy started to grow up and I wasn't as interested, but maybe I should give them another try now.

I did read The Ballad of Lucy Whipple, which was all right but not as good as Catherine Called Birdy. None of the author's other books are as good as Catherine Called Birdy; it's really rather sad.

[evelyn-b.livejournal.com]

OH NO well, I guess I know what I won't be reading next. ): When I was little I always looked on the Newbery Medal as a warning, though of course not everything that wins is a sadness parade.

Catherine Called Birdy was really astonishingly good. I'm sad to hear Cushman's other books are less great, but not surprised.

[nnozomi.livejournal.com]

(passing by as usual and invading your comment space...)
Book talk is definitely the most romantic thing (currently, er, deciding whether to date the really kind thoughtful guy or the one who reads a lot, and it is not easy).
American history kids' books: I second Betsy-Tacy, and how about an obscure one, Rebecca's War by, um...Ann Finlayson, I think...which is about a girl in Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War, who passes secret messages for the Americans while having a wounded British officer billeted in her house...it's very vivid and very well-written, I seem to remember.

(I love the WWII Montmaray Chronicles one, but mostly because I've read most of the same reference books she has, so it's kind of like ticking off a checklist of period details and bringing to mind where I read them first...)

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, Rebecca's War looks like fun. I've always had a weakness for books about child spies; I loved Tolliver's Secret, which is about a Revolutionary War girl delivering a secret message that has been baked into a loaf of bread.

[konstantya.livejournal.com]

Haha, oh Ann Rinaldi. I know I recommended Time Enough For Drums to you at some point, but I can't say I've ever read anything else by her. (I tried a couple others, because I did really enjoy Time Enough... but maybe because of the time-frame they took place in--the mid-1800s--I just couldn't get into them.)

As far as other suggestions go, maybe My Brother Sam Is Dead? I remember reading it when I was about 12-13 and enjoying it, but not much else. I just checked out the summary on Amazon, and it sounds about as grim and depressing as you might expect for a book that won a Newbery Honor.

And while they weren't "historical" at the time of their writing, maybe Nancy Drew and/or The Hardy Boys would be worth a mention, for the impact they've had on multiple generations of American youth?

I love the idea of a hero who is a museum director, by the way--if only because it speaks to my love of nerds, hah.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I think we actually own My Brother Sam Is Dead, but I never read it because, well, that title, it pretty much promises that the book is going to be a total downer. I guess it's nice that they're up front about it.

I think a museum director hero is going to be a lot of fun! It's a little baby museum - it was only founded a couple years ago, and he's the only employee, but he's got a lot of enthusiasm. He's started a project to interview older members of the community about their memories, which maybe I should have the heroine get involved in? I don't want it to be saccharine. I feel like a project interviewing sad old people (or happy old couples) has a lot of sappiness potential.