Historical Fiction

I'm not usually a reader of historical fiction.  I would much rather read a fantasy or suspense story.  However, every once in a while I come across a historical fiction book that I read and absolutely love.  Here a few of them . . .

The Seer of Shadows by Avi
In New York City in 1872, fourteen-year-old Horace, a photographer's apprentice, becomes entangled in a plot to create fraudulent spirit photographs, but when Horace accidentally frees the real ghost of a dead girl bent on revenge, his life takes a frightening turn.

Margret and Flynn, 1875 by Kathleen Duey
In the Colorado Territory in 1875, orphan Margret and her older sister Libby are staying with the kind-hearted Mrs. Fredrickson when Margret finds an injured horse which she nurses back to health and wants to keep, while Libby is too mistrustful of people to think that they might possibly have found a home.

Counting on Grace by Elizabeth Winthrop
It's 1910 in Pownal, Vermont. At 12, Grace and her best friend Arthur must leave school to work in the mill. They write a secret letter to the Child Labor Board about children working in the mill. A few weeks later, Lewis Hine, a famous reformer, arrives to gather evidence. Grace meets him and appears in some of his photographs, changing her life forever.

The Star of Kazan by Eva Ibbotson
Annika, a twelve-year-old foundling in late nineteenth-century Vienna, inherits a trunk of costume jewelry, and soon afterwards a woman claiming to be her aristocratic mother arrives and takes her to live in a strangely decrepit mansion in Germany.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
When twelve-year-old Hugo, an orphan living and repairing clocks within the walls of a Paris train station in 1931, meets a mysterious toyseller and his goddaughter, his undercover life and his biggest secret are jeopardized.