Historical Books

Cecilia Payne refused to let the barriers of her time hold her back.In early twentieth-century England, women couldn’t even earn degrees at Cambridge, yet Cecilia pursued her dream of becoming a scientist. Her journey eventually led her to Harvard, where she peered deep into the stars and made a discovery that forever changed our understanding of the universe. Before Cecilia, scientists believed stars were like planets with hotter surfaces, but…

Written by Nancy Churnin, illustrated by Marissa MossHanukkah is a holiday known for the miracle of the oil, of light lasting longer than was thought possible. This is the story of a modern-day Hanukkah miracle, a menorah bringing light when it’s needed most.When the synagogue of Mariupol was bombed by Russia in 2022, everyone thought the large menorah that was the center of the Jewish community’s Hanukkah celebration was destroyed….

The gripping story of one of America’s first cryptanalysts, Elizebeth Smith Friedman, who busted spy rings:One of the founders of US cryptology who would eventually become one of the world’s greatest code breakers, Elizebeth Smith Friedman (1892–1980) was a brilliant mind behind many important battles throughout the 20th century, saving many lives through her intelligence and heroism.Whip-smart and determined, Elizebeth displayed a remarkable aptitude for language and recognizing patterns from…

As a female Jewish physicist in Berlin during the early 20th century, Lise Meitner had to fight for an education, a job, and equal treatment in her field, like having her name listed on her own research papers. Meitner made groundbreaking strides in the study of radiation, but when Hitler came to power in Germany, she suddenly had to face not only sexism, but also life-threatening anti-Semitism as well. Nevertheless,…

In the late 19th century, there wasn’t much hope for premature babies – until Dr. Couney developed the incubator. The device was so new and strange, hospitals rejected it. So Dr. Couney set up a sideshow at Coney Island, taking care of the tiniest newborns as part of a display to convince the public that incubators worked. Thousands of babies grew into healthy children as Boardwalk Babies, including Dr. Couney’s…

From award-winning author Marissa Moss comes the first children’s book about Allan Pinkerton, one of America’s greatest detectives. Everyone knows the story of Abraham Lincoln, but few know anything about the spy who saved him! Allan Pinkerton’s life changed when he helped the Chicago Police Department track down a group of counterfeiters. From there, he became the first police detective in Chicago and established the country’s most successful detective agency….

When Kate Warne applied for a job with the Pinkerton Agency, Pinkerton assumed she wanted to cook or clean, but he agreed to try her out as an agent. Assigned to a tough case with high stakes, Warne went undercover and not only found the stolen money, she got almost all of it returned. The Adams Express Case made the reputation of the fledgling Pinkerton Agency, turning it into the…

Caravaggio was on a defiant mission to change the art world. Before him, there were pastel-colored idealized visions, polite paintings for a polite society. After him, there were slews of imitators, trying to grasp his brilliant slashes of light and dark, his people who looked more like your neighbor than a model of perfection. Bold with his brush, the young rebel was equally brash in his life, picking fights and…

In the last book of the time-travel series, Mira explores the past of her familiar Bay Area, discovering layers of history in San Francisco and learning the real reason her mother has been working to change history. On the way, she meets Mark Twain and uncovers the Watcher’s real identity….

Everyone has heard of the Boston Tea Party, but few know about the other tea parties that took place at the same time. Boston, Philadelphia, New York City, and Charleston all had to deal with the ships from England’s East India Company coming to deliver tea to the colonies–tea that had a very high tax attached. America’s Tea Parties provides background on England’s taxation of the colonies, with emphasis on…

In the third book of the popular time-travel series, Mira navigates her way through WWI London, meeting famous suffragists and writers like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Instructed by her time-traveling mother to steal a German spy’s briefcase full of secrets and pass on the information to British Intelligence, Mira struggles with whether the changes she has been working for are the right thing to do after all. How much control…

As a boy, Kenichi “Zeni” Zenimura dreams of playing professional baseball, but everyone tells him he is too small. Yet he grows up to be a successful player, playing with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig! When the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor in 1941, Zeni and his family are sent to one of ten internment camps where more than 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry are imprisoned without trials. Zeni brings the…

As if traveling to a new country in search of her missing mother weren’t difficult enough, Mira has to do it dressed as a boy. In a different century. A new postcard from her time–traveling mother points Mira to the 16th century Rome. But before she can rescue her mom, she must follow the clues left around the city to find Giordano Bruno, a famous thinker and mathematician, who discovered…

When Mira receives a cryptic postcard from her missing mother, she sets off with her father and brother to find her in Paris. Only Mira doesn’t know she’s looking in the wrong century. With an innocent touch to a gargoyle sculpture on the roof of Notre Dame, Mira is whisked into the past. There she learns her mother isn’t just avoiding the family, she’s in serious trouble. Following her mother’s…

Ida Lewis loved everything about the sea, so when her father became the official keeper of Lime Rock Lighthouse in Newport, Rhode Island, she couldn’t imagine anything better. Throughout the years, Ida shadowed her father as he tended the lighthouse, listening raptly to his stories about treacherous storms, drowning sailors, and daring rescues. Under her father’s watchful eye, she learned to polish the lighthouse lens so the light would shine…

This fast-paced, high-energy picture book tells the true story of Sarah Emma Edmonds, who at age nineteen disguised herself as a man in order to fight in the Civil War. She took the name Frank Thompson and joined a Michigan army regiment to battle the Confederacy. Sarah excelled as a soldier and nurse on the battlefield. Because of her heroism, she was asked to become a spy. Her story comes…

Filled with intrigue and surprises, The Pharaoh’s Secret includes Marissa Moss’s original illustrations throughout. The novel skillfully weaves history with a personal story full of heartache and family tensions that will entice and enthrall readers.When Talibah and her younger brother, Adom, accompany their father, an academic, to his homeland of modern Egypt on his research assignment, they become involved in a mystery surrounding an ancient, lost pharaoh – a rare…

For as long as she could remember, Jackie Mitchell’s father had told Jackie she could be good at whatever she wanted, as long as she worked at it. Jackie worked at baseball. She worked hard. And before long Jackie could outplay anyone in her neighborhood — even the boys. She had one pitch — a wicked, dropping curve ball. But no seventeen-year-old girl could pitch against Babe Ruth and Lou…

The life of a slave is the only life that twelve-year-old Galen knows, and though he hopes for a better one, he’s making the best of it. He practices painting whenever he can, finds adventures with his best friend, Micio, and just might solve a mystery that will improve the life of everyone around him–and change the course of history. Galen, from the acclaimed author of the Young American Voices…

The Samuels family is made of tough stuff. That’s a good thing, because it’s another trying year in the Dust Bowl. Weeks pass without rain, and it seems that all the plow stirs up is dust. But fortified with hope, love, determination, and ingenuity, eleven-year-old Rose and her family weather the toughest of times. And although Rose’s older brother, Floyd, prefers drawing to farming, he comes through when he is…

On a clear morning in 1912, Harriet Quimby had a vision–she would become the first woman to fly solo across the English Channel. If she were to veer off course by even five miles, she could end up in the North Sea, never to be heard from again. But she took the risk, anyway. Bestselling author Marissa Moss and award-winning artist C. F. Payne team up to tell this little-known…

America! Hannah’s small European village buzzes with tales of life in a faraway land free from persecution. Cousin Esther has passage for two aboard a ship bound for New York, and Hannah convinces Mama and Papashka to let her use the extra ticket. Will America really be everything they’ve dreamed of?…

The year is 1774, and the British army has blockaded Boston. Ten-year-old Emma is stuck at Aunt Harmony’s house in the city, far from her family. Emma desperately wants to help the American struggle for freedom. When Papa gives her a secret code the militia uses, she finally gets her chance to change the course of history….

Since age sixteen, Bee has loaded freight for the Union Pacific Railroad, all the while dreaming of being an engineer. Bee loves the railroad: from the roar and clatter of the wheels against the track to the names like True Heart, Roaring Wolf, and Coyote Special to the low blast of the whistle-whoooo-whoooo. Then one day, Bee gets the chance to drive the True Heart all the way from Cheyenne…

Traveling by covered wagon, young Rachel and her family follow the Oregon Trail from Illinois all the way to California. The terrain is rough and the seven-month trip is filled with adventure. Rachel’s own handwritten journal chronicles every detail and features cherished “pasted-in” mementos gathered along the way….