Need Some Help With Choosing Some Books

[Tom]

US? World? European? All of the above? I don't read much historical fiction myself, but Twelve Years a Slave and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee An Indian History of the American West are non-fiction books that might work. Once you have a teaching job, it might be a good idea to make friends with a lit teacher. My high school, up to a point, tried to pair up history and literature classes... US history and US lit the same year, world geography and world lit the same year, and so on.

[Marian]

12 to 16 years covers a wide range of reading ability. Your local public library might have a YA (Young adult) section, you could see what they have to offer. My son liked "April Morning", by Howard Fast, my daughters likes "Across 5 Aprils", when younger they enjoyed the "American Girl" series of books & Laura Ingalls Wilder. Conrad Richter has written books about the settlement of the nation that 6th. grade thru hi school read. Louise Erdrich has written about the Ojibway People for YA to adult. There are new books coming out all the time that are multi=cultural. The above message is a good idea, a lit teacher would know the newer & more popular books.

[Jim]

For the upper end of the age range, John Jakes wrote the Bicentennial series & I read it at about 16. The Bastard is the first, which will cause some comment, though. It made me want to learn more about history & was very interesting. Fat books, though.

[Count]

I am fond of Billy Budd, some of Herman Melville's short stories, though I can't seem to find a decent anthology offhand, and basically anything by Hawthorne or Conrad would probably cover your age range. Those Romantic writers are kind of heavy fare for 12 or 13, but are most of them perfect for the 14-16 crowd, at least as well as I can remember what I was reading at that age.

Go with the House of Seven Gables, and the black-velvet-clad kids will love you forever.

[Al]

I was really into historical fiction as a teen. Here are a few of my favorites.
The Book Thief,
The Red Badge of Courage,
Bowery Girl,
the classic Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,
as well as The Ramses series by Christian Jacq and anything by Edward Rutherfurd for the older readers

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads, Crazy Cat Lady]

A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver - E.L. Konigsburg
Johnny Tremain - Esther Forbes
Mischling, second degree My childhood in Nazi Germany - Ilse Kohn

There's a whole "Best Children's Historical Fiction" list over at Listopia: http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/65... . Some of it will skew too young (the Little House books or Indian Captive, for example), but some of them, I think, are right in the age group you're aiming at.

[[deleted user]]

The Persian Boy is readable by teens and will probably hold their attention. However, I suspect that parents at even a "progressive" school will be mightily uncomfortable with the autobiography of a boy who undergoes genital mutilation, rape, and sale to a conquering warlord.
An easier choice would be almost any other Mary Renault book, especially The King Must Die (also sexually explicit) and The Last of the Wine (contains a homosexual kiss). I read these last two when I was in your target age group and thought they were great.

Rudyard Kipling isn't usually regarded as a progressive author, but you might think about Kim. The main drawback: Many kids will find Kim boring and probably incomprehensible.

[Glenn]

Let me suggest a history book that was written for adults yet is accessible to kids. The title is "Thanksgiving: The Pilgrims' First Year in America." (Confession: I wrote it.) Though it's a history, it feels like a novel when you read it. But it's all fact. You can read excerpts and comments at NLLibrarium.com. Your library probably has a copy.

I'D GREATLY APPRECIATE A REVIEW, IF ANYONE FEELS LIKE READING IT!

Glenn Alan Cheney

[Jim]

Bruce Catton wrote a great historical novel about the Civil War that I read when I was in that age range. It was called Banners at Shenandoah. For that multicultural requirement, see if you can find a copy of the Spanish picaresque novel Lazarillo de Tormes. I recall a pretty good movie that was based on it.

Also interesting, but hard to find, is Yasushi Inoue's novel of a Japanese childhood, Shirobamba.

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads, Crazy Cat Lady]

I don't think I've read Banners at Shenandoah, but I think the best Civil War novel I've read is The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara.

[Jim]

Banners at Shenandoah is more oriented toward young adults, though I agree with you about the Shaara.