Historical Fiction
• Characteristics– Good story– Accurate historical setting– Re-creation of the past: events occurred or
could have possibly occurred– Plot deals with themes: loyalty, revenge, love,
hate, good, evil, life, death, honorable causes– Characters portray the impact of the time
period on their lives– Often main character is a young person
involved in a cause related to that time period and faces challenges similar to those faced by young people today
What to look for!
• Excellent research• Genuine historical information• An interesting story with an accurate
description of what it was like to live during that time period
• Authentic descriptions of clothing, food, transportation, customs, language, manners
• Reader should develop a sense of history
Bud Not Buddy
• Newbery Award winning historical fiction
• Christopher Paul Curtis-also wrote The Watsons go to Birmingham
• Set at the height of the Great Depression
• 1930s
• Orphan searching for his father
• Rules for survival
• Johnny Tremain -Esther Forbes– Setting Boston 1773-1775– Apprentice to silversmith-seriously injured– Becomes a heroic revolutionary– Paul Revere, John Adams, John Hancock
The Challenges of Historical Fiction
• Reading Rockets
• http://www.readingrockets.org/books/interviews/avi/
Titles/Authors
• Number the Stars –Lois Lowry (Holocaust, WWII• Little House in the Big Woods- Laura Ingalls
Wilder (Pioneer Life)• A Family Apart -Joan Lowery Nixon (Orphan
Trains-Late 1800s)• Crispin: The Cross of Lead- Avi (Middle Ages)
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