Historical fiction Books

LITTLE HOUSE. BIG ADVENTURE. Celebrate the original nine books that started it all! When Laura Ingalls Wilder first wrote of her experiences growing up in the 1800s, no one could have predicted the impact her stories would have on generations of children to come! Follow Laura’s life from the g...

Set in 1942 in Occupied France, Telling Lies is the story of a 15-year-old girl, Simone, whose family are supporters of the Resistance. Simone finds herself taking an active part in helping a New Zealand airman who has parachuted out of his crippled RAF bomber near their farm. This tale of what it w...

It is settled. The boy is in your charge. You will train him to fight. He must be able to use the dagger, throwing-knife, staves and his bare hands. One day young Marcus may well become a gladiator in the arena. But you must also teach him the ways of the street. Now a member of Julius Caesar's pala...

Playing with the form he created in his trailblazing debut novel, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Brian Selznick once again sails into uncharted territory and takes readers on an awe-inspiring journey. Ben and Rose secretly wish their lives were different. Ben longs for the father he has never kn...

The Cahills aren’t the only family searching for the Clues. . . . The Cahills thought they were the most powerful family the world had ever known. They thought they were the only ones who knew about Gideon Cahill and his Clues. The Cahills were wrong. Powerful enemies - the Vespers - hav...

Berlin 1942 When Bruno returns home from school one day, he discovers that his belongings are being packed in crates. His father has received a promotion and the family must move from their home to a new house far far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do. A tall fence running ...

Favorites for nearly 100 years, these classic novels follow the adventures of the spirited redhead Anne Shirley, who comes to stay at Green Gables and wins the hearts of everyone she meets. This lovely boxed gift collection comprises Anne of Green Gables, Anne of the Island, Anne of Avonlea, Anne...

'A Gathering Light is a remarkable debut, a book that sweeps across the genre boundaries of murder, mystery, romance, and historical fiction - resulting in an original novel that is both gripping and touching.' Scott Turow. When Mattie is given the letters by a guest at the hotel in which she has...

 Have you ever wondered what a human life is worth? That morning, my brother's was worth a pocket watch. It is 1941 and fifteen-year-old Lina is preparing for art school and looking forward to summer. Then suddenly, her life is changed forever. One night, the Soviet secret police invade h...

Napier in the 1930s was a time of going without. The story starts on the 25th of June, 1930 - a sad day in the Bourke household - the funeral of Katie's father. This Catholic family must now survive with earnings from the older siblings and the washing Katie's mother takes in. When older brother Tom...

Set against drought, flood, bushfire, war and jubilation, this is a story rooted in the words of our most famous national song. It is a love-song to a land and to a nation, told from the points of view of those who had no vote in 1901: the women, the Indigenous people, the Chinese market-gardeners, ...

A distant and fascinating world, where the future is not always as it seems, and the King's displeasure means death…Nikko lives in a small farming village in Greece near the stronghold of Mycenae in 1200 BC. When his sister Thetis is born, Nikko rescues her from the hillside where she has bee...

 It is a time of drought for the People of the Canyons. On the verge of starvation, Trei convinces his father to gather a few hunters and attempt a bison hunt, a risky undertaking with their simple wooden spears.  When the hunt ends in tragedy, Trei and his twin sister Souk secr...

It's August AD 78 and Claudia is at the Forum in Pompeii. It's a day of strange encounters and even odder portents. When the ground shakes Claudia is convinced it is a bad omen. What does it all mean? And why is she so disturbed by Vesuvius, the great volcano that looms over the city.

The Rainbow Warrior was the flag ship of the Greenpeace movement, when it was sunk by agents of the French Foreign Intelligence, while anchored in Auckland harbour, on the 10th of July 1985. In this story thirteen-year-old Rowan Webb gets herself a French penpal and unwittingly becomes involved in a...

It is 1968 when Debbie's grandmother gives her a copy of her forefather's old sea journal. She finds it fascinating and very different from her own diary of school life and troubles with friends. One day, sick in bed, she thinks her long-dead relative is trying to tell her something. And then she bo...

It's 1808 and Grace is living with her uncle in London. They have no money, and Grace is always lonely and often hungry. The best part of her day is going to Fleet Street to talk to the horses that she loves so much. One afternoon Grace can't resist taking a shiny red apple from a grocer's cart - an...

"Blessed with a gift..."cursed" with a secret." Everybody knows Cate Cahill and her sisters are eccentric. Too pretty, too reclusive, and far too educated for their own good. But the truth is even worse: they're witches. And if their secret is discovered by the priests of the Brotherhood, it woul...

It's 1864 . . . and Poppy lives at bird Creek Mission near Echuca. Poppy hates the Mission, especially now that her brother, Gus, has run away to pan for gold. What if Poppy escaped, too? Would she survive alone in the bush? And would she ever find Gus, whom she loves more than anything in the ...

It's 1841 . . . and Letty is on the docks in England, farewelling her bossy older sister who is about to take a long sea voyage to Australia. But then there is a mix-up,and before she knows it Letty finds herself on the ship too, travelling to New South Wales! How will Letty manage when her siste...

It's 1900 . . . and Rose lives with her family in a big house in Melbourne. She wants to play cricket, climb trees and be an adventurer! But Rose's mother has other ideas. Then Rose's favourite young aunt comes to town, and everything changes. Will Rose's mother let Aunt Alice stay? And will Rose...

Flavia Gemina is brilliant at finding things, so it's natural for her to solve mysteries. The daughter of a ship's captain living in Ostia, the port of Rome, in AD79, she acquires a gang of three friends who help her. There is Jonathan, the Jewish boy (and secretly a Christian); Nubia, the African s...

A scholarship student at an exclusive prep school, Emma Townsend feels like an outsider. Her stepmother doesn't come close to filling the void left by her mother's death. And her only romantic prospect - apart from a crush on her English teacher - is Gray Newman, a long-time friend who just adds to ...

The Tangiwai disaster, on the eve of Christmas 1953, remains one of the major disasters in New Zealand’s history. The year is 1953. Peter Cotterill starts the year writing in a journal given to him by his Great Aunt. We follow him through a year of many changes as his town of Napi...

I choose to start my story at a distant time. A time before I knew it was possible to take the words from my mouth and draw them in marks on paper. My story begins on the day when my world changed forever. I was very young, but the memory of that day is as enduring as greenstone. I write it now so t...

The latest installment in the critically acclaimed Stravaganza series begins with Matt, the new Stravagante. Despite having a beautiful and very smart girlfriend, Matt is insecure because he is dyslexic. He discovers that he is capable of traveling between two worlds when a leather-bound book transp...

Morris Gleitzman's two best-selling novels in one volume for the first time. My name is Felix Once I saved a girl called Zelda from a burning house I had a plan for both of us Pretend to be someone else Be safe forever Then the Nazis came 'Haunting . . . dangerous and desperate, full of...

Based on the true story of the Pook family in the 1920s, living in a remote area of the Kaipara Harbour, north of Auckland. Beautifully written, the story begins as a family of eight siblings are left alone for a week whilst their parents finally go away to get married. Fourteen-year-old Tom is left...

Step into a world of adventure—go back in time or to distant lands with Jack and Annie! From France in the Middle Ages to the prairies of America to the Moon, Jack and Annie make history fun by taking you right there! Revolutionary War On Wednesday #22 The Magic Tree House whisks Jack and ...

From former Children's Laureate and award-winning author Michael Morpurgo comes, "Arthur High King of Britain", reissued with a beautiful new cover.Marooned on a sandbank, a boy faces certain death. With the sea closing in and the current about to drag him to a watery grave, his final wish is to see...

The story of a remarkable boy called Yann Margoza; Tetu the dwarf, his friend and mentor; Sido, unloved daughter of a foolish Marquis; and Count Kalliovski, Grand Master of a secret society, who has half the aristocracy in thrall to him, and wants Yann dead. Yann is spirited away to London but three...

Pretty girls in pretty dresses, partying until dawn. Irresistible boys with mischievous smiles and dangerous intentions. White lies, dark secrets, and scandalous hookups. This is Manhattan, 1899. Beautiful sisters Elizabeth and Diana Holland rule Manhattan's social scene. Or so it appears. When ...

It's December 1936 when the first polio cases are suspected. Soon a polio epidemic is sweeping the country. Schools are closed, swimming pools and movie theatres banned to children, and travel restricted - but the epidemic is still spreading. Tom is the best runner in his school - but you can't outr...

Newberry Award Winner.AccoladesWinner of John Newbery Medal 1961.

Napler in the 1930s was a time of going without. The story starts on the 25th of June, 1930 - a sad day in the Bourke household - the funeral of Katie's father. This Catholic family must now survive with earnings from the older siblings and the washing Katie's mother takes in. When older brother Tom...

Told who to cheer for, who to believe in, Yuri grows up in a country where no freedom of thought is encouraged - where even one's neighbours are encouraged to report any dissension to the authorities. But it is still a shock when a few careless words lead him to a virtual death-sentence - sent on a ...

Heroism or cowardice? A stunning story of the First World War from a master storyteller. Told in the voice of a young soldier, the story follows 24 hours in his life at the front during WW1, and captures his memories as he looks back over his life. Full of stunningly researched detail and engrossing...

It's October AD 79. The arrival of a ragged man at the Geminus household sets in motion a series of events which take Flavia and her three friends to an opulent villa by the sea at Laurentum, a few miles south of Ostia. Just off the coast is a sunken wreck full of treasure which could be the answer ...

Canoes in the Mist has been selected as the third title to be released in this series, after Tripswitch and The Blue Lawn. With a younger readership, of 9-12, this much-loved classic retells the traumatic events surrounding the 1886 eruption of Mt Tarawera, from the viewpoint of two young schoolgirl...

The first book in the thrilling YA sequence, Order of Darkness. The year is 1453, and all signs point to it being the end of the world. Accused of heresy and expelled from his monastery, handsome seventeen-year-old, Luca Vero, is recruited by a mysterious stranger to record the end of times across E...