The Great Trouble: a mystery of London, the blue death, and a boy called Eel, by Deborah Hopkinson

Summary: Eel, an orphan, and his best friend Florrie must help Dr. John Snow prove that cholera is spread through water, and not poisonous air, when an epidemic sweeps across their London neighborhood in 1854.

Knopf

A Girl Called Problem, by Katie Quirk

Summary:  In 1967 Tanzania, when President Nyerere urges his people to work together as one extended family, the people of Litongo move to a new village which, to some, seems cursed, but where thirteen-year-old Shida, a healer, and her female cousins are allowed to attend school.

Eerdmans

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Brotherhood, by A.B. Westrick

Summary:  The year is 1867, the South has been defeated, and the American Civil War is over. But the conflict goes on. By day, fourteen-year-old Shadrach apprentices with a tailor and sneaks off for reading lessons with Rachel, a freed slave, at her school for African-American children. By night he follows his older brother to the meetings of a group whose stated mission is to protect Confederate widows like their mother. But as the true murderous intentions of the group, now known as the Ku Klux Klan, are revealed, Shad finds himself trapped between old loyalties and what he knows is right.

Viking

Fallout, by Todd Strasser

Summary:  In the summer of 1962, the possibility of nuclear war is all anyone talks about. But Scott’s dad is the only one in the neighborhood who actually prepares for the worst. As the neighbors scoff, he builds a bomb shelter to hold his family and stocks it with just enough supplies to keep the four of them alive for two critical weeks. In the middle of the night in late October, when the unthinkable happens, those same neighbors force their way into the shelter before Scott’s dad can shut the door.

Candlewick

Lara’s Gift, by Annemarie O’Brien

Summary: In 1914 Russia, Lara is being groomed by her father to be the next kennel steward for the Count’s borzoi dogs unless her mother bears a son, but her visions, although suppressed by her father, seem to suggest she has special bond with the dogs.

Knopf

Radio Girl, by Carol Brendler

Summary: In 1938, fourteen-year-old Cece, an aspiring radio actress, encounters lies, secrets, and hoaxes both at home and in the studio where she is transcribing the script for Orson Welles’s “War of the Worlds” broadcast.

Holiday House

Whistle in the Dark, by Susan Hill Long

Summary: In a small Missouri town during the 1920s, Clem is torn between family responsibility and the life he wishes to lead when he must begin working in the lead mine on his thirteenth birthday to help pay for his sister’s medical care.

Holiday House

The Pirate’s Coin, by Marianne Malone

Summary:  A magical coin leads sixth-graders Ruthie and Jack to 1753 Massachusetts and to Jack’s pirate ancestor when they return to the Art Institute of Chicago’s miniature Thorne Rooms on a mission to restore an African American family’s reputation.

Random House

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Ghost Hawk, by Susan Cooper

Summary: At the end of a winter-long journey into manhood, Little Hawk returns to find his village decimated by a white man’s plague and soon, despite a fresh start, Little Hawk dies violently but his spirit remains trapped, seeing how his world changes.

Margaret K. McElderry Books

Romeo Blue, by Phoebe Stone

Summary:  During World War II, Felicity Bathburn is living in Bottlebay, Maine, with her eccentric relatives and their foster child Derek, whom she has grown to love, but when a man claiming to be Derek’s true father arrives and starts asking all sorts of strange questions Felicity becomes suspicious of his motives.

Arthur A. Levine Books

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Better to Wish, by Ann Martin

Family Tree series
Summary: In 1930 Abby Nichols is an eight-year-old girl growing up in Maine, but as the Depression deepens, and her mother dies, the responsibility of taking care of her family falls to her, and she has to put her dreams of going to college and becoming a writer on hold.

Scholastic

From Hardships to Championships, by Glenn Stout

Good Sports series
Summary:  Baseball is a great sport, but not all players had the home life as kids that nurtured their talent. Babe Ruth, Jim Peirsall, Torii Hunter, Ron LeFlore, and Joe Torre dealt with poverty, abuse, and addiction when young, and had to turn their lives around to play the game they loved. A moving look at the lives of these four great players.

Sandpiper/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Al Capone Does My Homework, by Gennifer Choldenko

Summary:  Moose Flanagan, who lives on Alcatraz along with his family and the families of the other prison guards, faces new challenges when his father is promoted to Associate Warden.

Dial

Every Day After, by Laura Golden

Summary:  A young girl fights to keep her mama out of the mental ward, her home away from the bank, and herself out of the orphanage after her father abandons her and her mother in depression era Alabama.

Delacourte

P.S. Be Eleven, by Rita Williams-Garcia

Summary:  Eleven-year-old Brooklyn girl Delphine feels overwhelmed with worries and responsibilities. She’s just started sixth grade and is self-conscious. She’s supposed to be watching her sisters, but Fern and Vonetta are hard to control. Her uncle Darnell is home from Vietnam and seems different. And her pa has a girlfriend. At least Delphine can write to her mother in Oakland, California, for advice. But why does her mother tell her to “be eleven” after Delphine turns twelve?

HarperCollins

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