WAR AND WAR RELATED BOOKS

THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR, 1775-1783 

Blackwood, Gary                     Year of the Hangman

In 1777, having been kidnapped and taken forcibly from England to the American colonies, 15 year old Creighton becomes part of developments in the political unrest there that may spell defeat for the patriots and change the course of history.

Collier,  James                          My Brother Sam is Dead

Recounts the tragedy that strikes the Meeker family during the Revolution when one son joins the rebel forces while the rest of the family tries to stay neutral in a Tory town.

Duncan, Lois                            Peggy

            A fictionalized account of the life of the belle of Philadelphia who became the wife of Benedict Arnold.

O’Dell, Scott                            Sarah Bishop

            Left alone after the deaths of her father and brother who take opposite sides in the war for independence, and fleeing from              the British who seek to arrest her, Sarah Bishop struggles to shape a new life for herself in the wilderness.

Paulsen, Gary                           The Rifle

A priceless, handcrafted rifle, fired throughout the American Revolution, is passed down through the years until it fires on a fateful Christmas Eve of 1994.

Rinaldi, Ann                              The fifth of March: a story of the Boston Massacre

            Fourteen-year-old Rachel Marsh, an indentured servant in the Boston household of John and Abigail Adams, is caught up in the colonists’ unrest that eventually escalates into the massacre of March 5, 1770.

Sterman, Betsy             Saratoga Secret

            In 1777, as General Burgoyne and his British troops invade the Upper Hudson River Valley, sixteen-year-old Amity must carry a secret message to the continental army to give warning of an impending attack.

CIVIL WAR BOOKS

Beatty, Patricia             Charley Skedaddle

During the Civil War, a twelve-year-old Bowery boy from New York City joins the Union Army as a drummer deserts during a battle in Virginia and encounters a hostile old mountain woman. 

Crane, Stephen             Red Badge of Courage

            During his service in the Civil War, a young Union soldier matures to manhood and finds peace of mind as he comes to grips with his conflicting emotions about war.

Fleishman, Paul                         Bull Run

Northerners, Southerners, generals, couriers, dreaming boys, and worried sisters describe the glory, the horror, the thrill, and the disillusionment of the first battle of the Civil War. 

Gibbons, Kaye                         On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon *

            Emma, the daughter of a tyrannical slave owner, marries a doctor and assists him in a battlefield surgery during the Civil War.

Hughes, Pat                              Guerrilla Season

            Two fifteen-year-old boys in Missouri in 1863 find friendship and family loyalty tested by Quantrell’s raiders, a Rebel guerrilla band who roamed under the black flag of “no quarter to be given by Union troops.”

Matas, Carol                            The War Within: a Novel of the Civil War

In 1862, after Union forces expel Hannah’s family from Holly Springs, Mississippi, because they are Jews, Hannah reexamines her views regarding slavery and the war.

Paulsen, Gary                           Soldier’s Heart: a Novel of the Civil War

Eager to enlist, fifteen-year-old Charley has a change of heart after experiencing both the physical horrors and mental anguish of Civil War combat.

Reeder. Carolyn                       Shades of Gray

            At the end of the Civil War, 12-year old Will, having lost his family, reluctantly leaves his city home to live in the Virginia countryside.

Rinaldi, Ann                              Last Silk Dress

            Druing the Civil War, Susan finds a way to help the Confederate Army and uncovers a series of mysterious family secrets.

Shaara, Michael                        The Killer Angels *

Covers the four most bloody and courageous days of the Civil War – the Battle of Gettysburg. 

Wells, Rosemary                      Red Moon at Sharpsburg

            Even though the odds are against her and the Civil War has ruined her home and given her a view of the darker side of humanity, thirteen-year-old India Moody continues to aspire to become a scientist and attend Oberlin College.

WORLD WAR I BOOKS, 1914-1918 

Lawrence, Iain                          Lord of the Nutcracker Men

An English boy during World War I comes to believe that the battles he enacts with his toy soldiers control the war his father is fighting on the front. 

Morpurgo, Michael                   Private Peaceful

When Thomas Peaceful’s older brother is forced to join the British Army, Thomas decides to sign up as well, although he is only fourteen years old, to prove himself to his country, his family, his childhood love, Molly, and himself. 

Spillebeen, Geert                      Kipling’s Choice

In 1915, mortally wounded in Loos, France, eighteen-year-old John Kipling, son of writer Rudyard Kipling, remembers his boyhood and the events leading to what is to be his first and last World War I battle.

WORLD WAR II BOOKS, 1939-1945

Bruchac, Joseph                       Code Talker

            After being taught in a boarding school run by whites that Navajo is a useless language, Ned Begay and other Navajo men are recruited by the Marines to become Code Talkers, sending messages during World War II in their native tongue. 

Hersey, John                            Hiroshima *

Describes the effect of the bombing of Hiroshima on six survivors of the atomic blast. 

Hughes, Dean                           Soldier Boys

Two boys, one Germand and one American, are eager to join their respective armies during World War II, and their paths cross at the Battle of the Bulge. 

Lawrence, Iain                          B For Buster

In the Spring of 1943, sixteen-year-old Kak, desperate to escape his abusive parents, lies about his age to enlist in the Canadian Air Force and soon finds himself based in England as part of a crew flying bombing raids over Germany. 

Mazer, Harry                            A Boy at War, Boy No More, Heroes Don’t Run

While fishing with his friends off Honolulu on December 7, 1941, teenaged Adam is caught in the midst of the Japanese attack and through the chaos of the subsequent days tries to find his father, a naval officer who was serving on the U.S.S. Arizona when the bombs fell. (Also: Boy No More)

Mazer, Harry                            The Last Mission

In 1944 a fifteen-year-old Jewish boy tells his family he will travel in the West but instead, enlists in the United States Air Corps and is subsequently taken prisoner by the Germans. 

Myers, Walter Dean                 The Journal of Scott Pendleton Collins, a WWII Soldier

A seventeen-year-old soldier from central Virginia records his experiences in a journal as his regiment takes part in the D-Day invasion of Normandy and subsequent battles to liberate France. 

Napoli, Donna Jo                     Fire in the Hills

            Upon returning to Italy, fourteen-year-old Roberto struggles to survive, first on his own, then as a member of the resistance, fighting against the Nazi occupiers while yearning to reach home safely and for an end to the war. 

Salisbury, Graham                    Eyes of the Emperor

            Following orders from the United States Army, several young Japanese American  men train K-9 units to hunt Asians during World War II. 

Salisbury, Graham                    Under the Blood-Red Sun

Tomikazu Nakaji’s biggest concerns are baseball, homework, and a local bully, until life with his Japanese family in Hawaii changes drastically after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941. 

Smith, Roland                           Elephant Run

            Nick endures servitude, beatings, and more after his British father’s plantation in Burma is invaded by the Japanese in 1941, and when his father and others are taken prisoner and nick is stranded with his friend Mya, they plan a daring escape on elephants, risking their lives to save Nick’s father and Mya’s brother  from a Japanese prisoner of war camp.            

Wulffson, Don                          Soldier X

In 1943 sixteen-year-old Erik experiences the horrors of war when he is drafted into the German army and sent to fight on the Russian front.

VIET NAM WAR BOOKS 

Hughes, Dean                           Search and Destroy

Recent high school graduate Rick Ward, undecided about his future and eager to  escape his unhappy home life, joins the army and experiences the horrors of the war in Vietnam.

Kadohata, Cynthia                    Cracker!: The Best Dog in Vietnam

            A young soldier in Vietnam bonds with his bomb-sniffing dog. 

Myers, Walter Dean                 Fallen Angels

Seventeen-year-old Richie Perry, just out of his Harlem high school, enlists in the Army in the summer of 1967 and spends a devastating year on active duty in Vietnam. 

O’Brien, Tim                            The Things They Carried

A collection of related short fiction stories with recurring characters and an interwoven plot and theme, which recreate the Viet Nam War experiences of an American foot soldier. 

White, Ellen Emerson                The Road Home

Rebecca, a young nurse stationed in Viet Nam during the war, must come to grips with her wartime experiences once she returns home to the United States.

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