ELL

HISTORICAL FICTION

Reading levels are indicated: “beginning” is for readers who are starting to learn English, while “intermediate” and “advanced” are for readers with some experience in the language.
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Captain America: The Ghost Army (Original Graphic Novel) 
by Alan Gratz 
Set during World War II, Steve Rogers (AKA Captain America) and his young sidekick, Bucky Barnes, encounter threat like none they've ever seen -- a Ghost Army. The dead of this war and wars past are coming back to life, impervious to bullets, flames, or anything else the Allies can throw at them. The armies rise from the ground in the night and seem to disappear without a trace. (beginning)
On the Horizon
by Lois Lowry
Written in verse, this is the story of people whose lives were lost or forever altered by the twin tragedies of Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima during WWII. Based on the lives of soldiers at Pearl Harbor and civilians in Hiroshima. (beginning-intermediate)
Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales (series)
by Nathan Hale
Book 1: One Dead Spy
The author begins his series retelling the roughest, toughest, craziest stories from history with this tale of his namesake, Nathan Hale, America’s first spy. This series is a great way to gain basic knowledge of American history. (graphic novel) (beginning)
Chains 
By Laurie Halse Anderson
Isabel must fight for freedom--and spy on the enemy-- for herself and her sister after she is re-sold into slavery to a Loyalist household during the Revolutionary War. (advanced).
Half a Man by Michael Morpurgo 
​Michael has always been fascinated and afraid of his war-scarred grandfather, until he eventually spends his summers with him and learns the story behind the scars and the man beneath them. (beginning-intermediate) Also by this author: Warhorse
I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, 2011               
by Lauren Tarshis
​A huge earthquake and wave hit Japan while Ben is visiting, leaving him stranded alone. Any books in the I Survived series would be great choices. (beginning)
Indian No More 
​by Charlene Willing Mcmanis and Traci Sorell
In 1957, Regina's world is shaken when the Federal Government passes a law that says Regina's tribe, the Umpqua, no longer exists, Regina becomes "Indian no more" overnight--even though her ancestors were Indian for countless generations. When her family relocates from the reservation to Los Angeles, Regina has to learn where she does fit in. (beginning-intermediate)
While I Was Away by Waka T. Brown
Waka's parents decide that her Japanese language skills need a boost and send her to Japan to stay with her strict grandmother. Waka misses Kansas, where she was considered a brain. Here in Japan, her clumsiness with the language and customs brand her a dumb jock. How can she deal with this new identity, a confusing culture and a stern and serious grandmother? (intermediate)
White Bird: A Wonder Story
by R.J. Palacio
Told from the perspective of Julian’s Grandmere, who was hidden by a family in a Nazi-occupied French village during World War II; and how the boy she and her classmates once shunned became her savior and best friend. (graphic novel) (intermediate)
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