HF based on true events

[Joy]

Any recommendations for HF based on true events. As in a specific event, not something more general like WWI. In addition, any suggestions of this kind for chapter books (not YA). An example of this type of book would be Sylvia & Aki.....Thanks

[Rick]

The protagonist in "The Gomorrah Principle" faces two very real events within a war: The Phoenix Program AKA Phung Hoang, and the 1968 Tet Offensive in Saigon and Hue.

[Cheryl A]

Between my favorites and picking my co-workers' brain (a children's librarian), we came up with the following titles for middle readers:

Countdown (Bay of Pigs) and Revolution (Freedom Summer) by Deborah Wiles
The Red Umbrella (Operation Peter Pan) by Christina Diaz Gonzalez
The Lions of Little Rock (1958 Little Rock school integration) by Kristin Levine
Paper Wishes (Japanese internment camp) by Lois Sepahban
The War that Saved My Life (British evacuation of school children) by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
Stella by Starlight (Depression-era civil rights) by Sharon M. Draper
and a couple of more contemporary selections (which kids may consider historical)
The Red Pencil (Sudanese refugees) by Andrea Davis Pinkney
Towers Falling by Jewell Parker Rhodes

[Eileen]

There's by Flora Solomon. It's about military nurses stranded in the Philippines during WWII. Pretty riveting.

[PattyMacDotComma]

I never knew any of this scandal (and it WAS a scandal) about the Titanic. The Midnight Watch: A Novel of the Titanic and the Californian, by Aussie author David Dyer, who's an authority on the sinking, is his fictional telling of the story through the eyes of a journalist, with some family back-story.

The facts of the accident and the callousness of a nearby potential rescue ship are dreadful!

My review is here.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[PattyMacDotComma]

Joy wrote: "Any recommendations for HF based on true events. As in a specific event, not something more general like WWI. In addition, any suggestions of this kind for chapter books (not YA). An example of thi..."

Are you really looking more for children's books, Joy?

[Joy]

Actually, we put together a good list for YA and children. I am now putting a list together for Adults, If you are interested in our list for children and YA - go to -
https://crete-ne.socs.net/vnews/displ...

I hope the rest of my community loves historical fiction as well as I do. So any recommendations for adults that fit the theme - specific, true events, please let post.

[Anna]

If you are interested in the end of the Cold War era, the collapse of the Soviet Union, here is one fresh release https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...

[Carrie]

[Simon]

The Artist’s Muse - about the Art world in early 20th century Vienna, fresh feminist perspective.

[Jayme(theghostreader)]

this just came out. It's about the Tennessee Children's Home and Georgia Tan. She placed many children in good homes but she was kidnapping some of these children from poor families.

[Margaret]

Convict transported to Australia and escaped: Remember Me

[MJ]

Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark T. Sullivan

[Miriam]

That sounds like a great premise and a learning experience. And a great title!

[Elissa]

It is probably considered middle grade now, but anything by Eloise Jarvis McGraw was based on true events as seen by an observant minor player - a servant, a translator at the palace, etc. I particularly loved Mara, Daughter if the Nile, about the overthrow of Hatshepsut by the young Tut.

[Rachel]

How about Exodus by Leon Uris? Based on actual events, and fairly true to history, is my ( granted limited ) understanding.

[Jan]

Another Leon Uris novel: Mila 18. It is about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising during WWII.

[C.P.]

The thing is, most historical fiction, especially for adults, is based on true events. Otherwise it's fantasy.

So how much truth do you want? Are we talking the novels of Sharon Kay Penman or Philippa Gregory? Or are you comfortable with Bernard Cornwell's Saxon novels?

For example, I am a historian. I write historical novels set in medieval Russia for the explicit purpose of acquainting people unfamiliar with Muscovite Russia with that time and place. Every fact I can check, I do. Many of the events and characters in my books never existed, yet the spine of every story did.

Is that what you mean, or are you looking for something else?

[Rachel]

I recently read Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys which is a YA book based on actual events. The characters are fictional, but the events they're in really happened.

[Abigail]

I might introduce here a distinction between “true events” and “true circumstances.” “True events” seems to presuppose a narrative that touches on major historical moments, major historical figures. Personally, I am less attracted to another tale about the Tudors or the generals in the American Civil War (for example) than to tales about ordinary people living in other times and places (“true circumstances”). Both require historical research but they are very different kinds of fiction. Year of Wonders or The Summer Before the War might be examples of true-circumstances historical novels. Their characters are shaped by time and place but are not major actors in what we generally see as “history.” And one could take things even a step further, telling stories of people who didn’t even experience major upheavals like the Black Death or World War I—just ordinary lives. Such stories are less common, perhaps, but the most interesting for me of all.

[Tom]

I think the most interesting possibilities come where the two meet. I often find my character in a specific historical event, which is told with a lot of regard for the precise historical record - but my stories are definitely fiction. The most historically detailed I've done is 'Cawnpore', where the historical record of the siege is very tightly woven into the story. A friend who'd read it was watching a TV documentary on Cawnpore and gave up because they said they realised it wasn't telling them anything they didn't already know. But the main character and the dilemma he faces is very definitely fiction. (Please note that my books are currently only available in North America. They will be republished in the UK very soon.)