History in Fact and Fiction

Sandip Wilson
Reading historical fiction and nonfiction can provide context and detail for readers that can deepen the understanding and insight into places and events, some familiar from textbook introductions and some new for readers. Engaging and transporting, these books introduce unique points of view and perspectives on lives and experiences that can jumpstart thinking about the past. 

At Last She Stood: How Joey Guerrero Spied, Survived, and Fought for Freedom. Erin Entrada Kelly. (2025). Greenwillow. 
Joey Guerrero (1917-1996), born in Lubcan, a village in the Philippines, longed to be as brave as Joan of Arc. Living in an orphanage, she became an athlete but developed tuberculosis, and as a young adult, her symptoms of pain, fever, and lesions on her skin were diagnosed as leprosy, a misunderstood disease and one that isolates the sufferers. This biography details her involvement in the Philippine Resistance to the Japanese occupation of World War II after their invasion in December 1941. Her knowledge of Manila and her condition of being a leper enabled her to observe and report the actions of the Japanese. She mapped their resources and movements and, on foot, delivered detailed maps to the allied forces that changed the course of the war. After the war, Joey came to the US for leprosy care in Louisiana and made a life as an editor and secretary. Erin Kelly includes information on the disease, history of the islands, and details of World War II. The book includes archival photographs, maps, primary sources, and inserted boxes with historical detail, tracing the colonization of the Spanish, Americans, and the Japanese. The back matter includes an author’s note, sources, endnotes, and an index. GR 5 Up 

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Death in the Jungle: Murder, Betrayal, and the Lost Dream of Jonestown. Candace Fleming. (2025). Ann Schwartz Books.
Jim Jones (1931-1978), born in Indiana, learned early from preachers how to persuade audiences. With his charm and charisma, he became a preacher and started his own church, appealing to marginalized people and promising community. As the church grew, he and his family moved to California in 1963, founding People’s Temple in Redwood Valley. Candace Fleming chronicles his rise in power, as the Temple grew there and in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Becoming more insular and making himself the godhead, he required members to commit their lives, money, and talents to him. Disaffected members were taunted and punished. Growing fearful of the government and fueled by drug use, he moved the community to the isolated jungles of Guyana. The history of Peoples Temple and Jonestown are detailed through interviews with the disaffected and survivors of the Jonestown massacre of 1978, when settlers died by forced suicide. The book includes archival photographs, an introduction of key people in the front matter, and the back matter includes an author’s note, acknowledgements, source notes, bibliography, and photo credits. GR 9 Up. ​

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The Doll Test: Choosing Equality. Carol Boston Weatherford. Illus. David Elmo Cooper. (2025). Carolrhoda.
Dr. Kenneth Clark and his wife, Dr. Mamie Clark, interested in how our minds work, designed a study they called the doll test that they used to interview African American children about who they thought was good, nice, and who they wanted to play with. Told in the voice of the four dolls, this account chronicles their study, the context of segregated schools during which children had to walk far from home to attend neglected schools when better white schools were near their homes, and the 1952 US Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, a case involving five families from four states and Washington, D. C., all wanting better education for their children. The decision marked the beginning of the end of segregation nationally. Stunning illustrations provide historical context of segregated schools and detail the research the Clarks presented during the case. The back matter includes author and illustrator notes, further contextual information on the families and case with archival photographs of Gordon Parks, a timeline, further reading, and credits. GR 2-5 

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The Eclipse of 1919: How Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity Changed our World. Emily Arnold McCully. (2025). Ottaviano. 
By 1919, Einstein had been working on his theory of relativity throughout his life. He knew it was elegant, but wondered whether gravity bent a star’s light, making it appear to have moved. A solar eclipse in 1914 was an opportunity to test the theory, but war made that impossible. Although people forgot about the theory, one scientist did not and set out to test it, photographing the sky during the 1919 solar eclipse, under duress of unpredictable rain and cloud cover. In this picture book account of scientific inquiry, colorful illustrations, rendered in watercolor and ink, add detail to illustrations depicting his life, the solar system, and his theory of space-time that Einstein wanted to test. GR 2-5

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The Enemy's Daughter. Anne Blankman. (2025). Viking Books for Young Readers.
Visiting relatives in America in 1915, German-born twelve-year-old Marta and her father are desperate to return to Germany to stop her brother from entering the German army. Since German ships cannot leave American harbors, she and her father assume the identity of their American hosts and board the Lusitania, planning to arrive in Ireland and cross the channel to Holland. Marta doubts the fears of passengers, sure that the Germans are going to attack civilian vessels, but when her father’s false identity is discovered and he is detained, she tears up all their papers and a package of family photos, destroying their identity. She is rescued in Ireland as an American when the Lusitania is torpedoed. Terror turns to suspense, as Marta hides her true identity and German accent among people who welcome and care for her, yet plans to earn money, travel across the UK, and get to Holland, returning to her family at a time when war in Europe escalates. Back matter includes acknowledgements and an author’s note that provides historical context and separates fact from fiction in this novel of survival, community, and friendship. GR 4-8 

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March 6 Earthrise: The Story of the Photograph That Changed the Way We See Our Planet. Leonard Marcus. (2025). Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. 
This biography of an iconic photograph is a history of the 1960s US Apollo space program to the moon, a history that provides context for the Apollo 8 mission, Christmas Eve 1968, during which Bill Anders, trained on the mission’s Hasselblad cameras, set the exposure, and took the picture of the Earth rising as their module rounded the moon. Originally showing the moon on the vertical, how Earth appeared to Anders and Borman, mission commander, and Lovell, mission engineer, the photo was later altered for the public. Archival photographs complement Leonard Marcus’s history. He details the context for the mission with discussion of the lives of the three astronauts, the policies of NASA, which included the belief that photos didn’t matter, and the growing interest in having pictures of the Earth. The back matter includes a bibliography, online and film resources, endnotes, photo credits, and acknowledgements. GR 5 Up

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A Most Perilous World: The True Story of the Young Abolitionists and Their Crusade Against Slavery. Kristina R. Gaddy. (2025). Dutton. 
Moments in the lives of four abolitionists are chronicled from 1854 to 1865 and provide perspectives on the American Civil War. Well-read, well-tutored, in families committed to freedom and equality, they knew one another. Lucy McKim’s father was friends with William Lloyd Garrison, founder and publisher of The Liberator, and knew Charlotte Forten, whose grandfather underwrote Garrison’s newspaper. Lucy and Charlotte knew George Garrison, one of Garrison’s sons who worked on his father’s newspaper, and Lewis Douglass, son of Frederick Douglass who knew Garrison. Alternating chapters detail their experiences related to specific events of the Civil War, 1861-1865, and express their hopes, personal dilemmas, and relationships with their families. Primary documents of letters, news clippings, and journal entries provide context for the events in the narrative. Front matter includes an introduction and prologue. Back matter includes information on their later lives, acknowledgments,  bibliography, endnotes, and index. GR 8 Up

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Not Nothing. Gayle Foreman. (2025). Aladdin
Twelve-year-old Alex hasn’t seen his mother in a year after moving with her fourteen times and going to different schools. By court order he continues seeing his social worker and does community service in a senior living residence, but works under the imperious Maya-Jade, who assigns him gruesome tasks. When the chef asks him to take meals to residents’ rooms, Alex meets 107-year-old Joseph Kravitz, who has not spoken in five years but answers Alex’s question about a portrait hanging in his room, a moment that inspires a relationship. Narrated by Josey, the complex novel recounts his life in Krakow before World War II, his father’s prosperous clothing and tailoring business, his relationship with Olak, a classmate who worked for his father and became Josey’s friend and wife, and the Holocaust from his family’s perspective. As Alex and Josey tell their stories, Alex and Maya-Jade create a project of the residents’ stories and discover that making a difference in people’s lives is not nothing. GR 5-8

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Sheller of Pecans. Lupe Flores Ruiz. (2025). Carolrhoda. 
In 1937 San Antonio, thirteen-year-old Petra has dreams of completing high school, but when her father dies, she takes a full-time job at the pecan shelling factory to help support her step-mother and two brothers. The work is grueling and dust fills the air in the closed building with no ventilation and one toilet. Petra makes friends, including Ofelia, who has a constant cough that leaves her weak but, like other workers, going to the doctor is an expense she can’t afford. Afraid of losing their jobs, working under terrible conditions, and knowing they could be easily fired, the workers learn they will be paid less than the current piece-work rate. Even as Petra’s dreams of school and writing are challenged, she decides to take action, risking her job and her family’s welfare. Back matter of this novel about friendship, community, and social justice includes an author’s note providing historical context for the novel, questions for discussion, and acknowledgements. GR 5-8

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Under the Same Stars. Libba Bray. (2025). Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. 
Written in the third person, three connected stories that start in Germany in 1940 follow the friendship between Sophie and Hanna, who find solace in the woods and their favorite tree, a magic tree, so the story goes, where people find true love. Their friendship and sense of duty and justice are tested as World War II takes over their lives. In the 1980s, Jenny, an American transplant with her corporate father, feels lonely and isolated until she meets German punk Lena, who urges her to rebel against society’s expectations. In their friendship, Jenny rediscovers her musicianship with the violin as she plays in Lena’s band. And in 2020, Brooklyn, Miles, a Filipino American, is trying to adjust to the radical changes brought on by COVID-19. His best friend, Chloe, is given her grandmother’s scrapbook. The pair uncover a trail of secrets linked to long-ago disappearances, which connects the three stories in this novel of discovery and connection. GR 9-12. 

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Will’s Race for Home. Jewel Parker Rhodes. Illus. Olga Ivanov & Aleksey Ivanov. (2025). Little Brown.
Set in 1889, twelve-year-old Will and his father leave their sharecrop farm in Texas to travel to claim land in the Oklahoma Land Rush, where they can build on land that belongs to them. Will’s father, silent about his past walking to Texas after emancipation, is reticent about Will’s coming but relents. Determined to live up to his responsibility in the perilous journey, Will proves himself brave and willing, saving their property kept in the wagon, saving their Mule, Belle during a treacherous crossing of the Red River, and racing against time to claim land in the rush on Midnight, the horse belonging to their friend Caesar, an officer of the Union army who has a history of his own, and who they meet in the journey. In this novel of friendship, family, and racism, Will protects the land from claim jumpers who do not know he can read, a skill his mother taught him. An afterword in the back matter provides historical context. GR 5-8 

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Sandip Wilson is a professor of literacy education and English at Husson University, Bangor, Maine, and past-President of the CL/R SIG.