Someone Named Eva is a 2007 middle-grade historical fiction novel by American teacher and children’s author Joan M. Wolf. The book is set around the 1942 Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and Slovakia) during World War II. The story follows 11-year-old Milada Kralicek and her journey of loss and rediscovery. Milada struggles to remember her Czech family and identity after Nazi soldiers kidnap her and force her to... Read Someone Named Eva Summary

The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea that Shaped a Nation, originally published in 2003 by Oxford University Press, is a popular history book by American cultural historian Jim Cullen. As an overview and critical analysis of the American Dream, this book adds some meat to the bones of a traditionally ambiguous concept. Cullen maintains an optimistic outlook about the usefulness of the various American Dreams and about the promise of America, despite... Read The American Dream Summary

The Art of Love, or Ars Amatoria, by Ovid, was published between 1 BCE and 2 CE. It was originally written in Latin. This guide cites the English translation by A. D. Melville, published by Oxford World Classics in 1990.The Art of Love is a didactic poem, or one that is intended to teach the reader. It probably was written after another didactic piece by Ovid, Cosmetics for Ladies, and his love poems Amores, but... Read The Art of Love Summary

“The Battle of Maldon” is a heroic poem, also classified as an epic, dating from the 10th century. Originally written in Old English, the text details a violent battle between the Anglo-Saxon warriors and the raiding Vikings. The Anglo-Saxons are led by Earl Byrhtnoth, who held land in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Essex and fought for his ruler, King Æthelred the Unready. The poem depicts some of the central tenets of Anglo-Saxon culture, praising loyalty... Read The Battle of Maldon Summary

The Berlin Boxing Club is the second novel by Robert Sharenow, also the author of My Mother the Cheerleader. It was published in 2011 and won the Association of Jewish Libraries Sidney Taylor Award.While a work of fiction, The Berlin Boxing Clubis based on a true story: that of the German boxing champion Max Schmeling, who sheltered two Jewish children during Kristallnacht—the night of Nazi-sponsored rioting against Jews that many see as the beginning of... Read The Berlin Boxing Club Summary

First published in 1969 by William Collins Sons & Co., historian Philip Ziegler’s The Black Death is a classic, critically acclaimed text on the history of the devastating epidemic that ravaged medieval Europe. As the author himself notes in the preface: “there may be controversy over its precise significance, [but] no one would today deny that the Black Death was of the greatest economic and social importance as well as hideously dramatic in its progress”... Read The Black Death Summary

Not far from Cincinnati in 1830 lies a “great forest” occupied by the scattered homes of early settlers. Among them is an old, neglected cabin with a front door and boarded-up window. For decades, a white-haired man named Murlock has lived there; he looks 70 but is really 50. He lets his yard grow wild and provides for himself by selling animal skins.Murlock is found dead at his cabin, apparently of natural causes. He’s buried... Read The Boarded Window Summary

The Book Thief (December 2007) is a young adult novel by Australian author Markus Zusak. Other titles by Zusak include Underdogs (1999), I am the Messenger (2002), and Bridge of Clay (2018). All his works have received multiple literary prizes and reader’s choice awards from countries around the world.When first published, The Book Thief became a #1 New York Times bestseller and was a nominee of PBS’s The Great American Read as one of America’s... Read The Book Thief Summary

The Castle of Otranto, first published in 1764 by English author Horace Walpole (1717-1797), is considered the first supernatural work of Gothic fiction, influencing many well-known 19th century writers such as Clara Reeve, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe, and Robert Louis Stevenson.The five-chapter long novella revolves around the mysterious supernatural events at the titular castle, whose owner goes to villainous lengths to maintain control of it. Walpole introduces Gothic elements that drive the... Read The Castle of Otranto Summary

The Diary of Anne Frank, a play by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, premiered on Broadway at the Cort Theatre in 1955, only 10 years after Anne Frank’s death and eight years after the publication of her diary documenting two and a half years spent in hiding from Nazi persecution as a Jewish girl in Amsterdam during the Holocaust. The husband and wife writing team of Goodrich and Hackett were primarily known as a successful... Read The Diary of Anne Frank: A Play Summary

The Dictionary of Lost Words is a 2020 historical novel by Australian author Pip Williams. It is based on true historical events surrounding the compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary, the suffrage movement for women’s voting rights, and World War I. The novel won numerous awards, including the MUD Literary Prize for best debut novel and General Fiction Book of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards, both in 2021.This study guide references the... Read The Dictionary of Lost Words Summary

The Downstairs Girl (2019) is a work of young adult (YA) historical fiction by Stacey Lee. The unusual coming-of-age story features 17-year-old Jo Kuan, a Chinese American girl trying to assert her identity in the context of racist and gender-based biases in 1890s Atlanta. Jo’s life is turned upside down when she decides to moonlight as a secret advice column writer, while working as a lady’s maid by day. Dispensing radical and witty advice that... Read The Downstairs Girl Summary

The Fountains of Silence: A Novel was published in 2019 by Ruta Sepetys, the daughter of a Lithuanian refugee. Though she primarily writes for young adults, her historical fiction is popular with readers of all ages. Other well-known works include Between Shades of Gray (2011), Out of the Easy (2013), Salt to the Sea (2016), and I Must Betray You (2022).This study guide refers to the Philomel Books edition published by Penguin Random House in... Read The Fountains of Silence Summary

Written sometime in the late 2nd century CE, Apuleius’s The Golden Ass, a picaresque novel about a man turned into a donkey, intersperses its main narrative with many raunchy comic tales. In writing about its magic-obsessed hero, Apuleius, a Numidian philosopher living in the Roman Empire, possibly drew on his own experiences of being accused of using magic to seduce a wealthy widow—something he had to defend against in court. The Golden Ass is the only... Read The Golden Ass Summary

The Grapes of Wrath (1939) is a classic novel by American author John Steinbeck. It centers on the Joads, an Oklahoma family evicted from their farm following the 1930s dust storms which ruined local crops. Losing their land, the Joads travel to California to seek work. On their journey they encounter hardship, prejudice, and police intimidation. However, when they get there, things become worse. They must stay in squalid camps and discover that work for... Read The Grapes of Wrath Summary

Henry Holt and Company published Antonio Iturbe’s novel, The Librarian of Auschwitz, in America on September 18, 2012. Before the English Language version, Iturbe’s novel appeared in Spain as La bibliotecaria de Auschwitz. Antonio Iturbe is a Spanish journalist, writer, and professor who has taught postgraduate courses in journalism at universities in Madrid and Barcelona and is the President of the Association of Cultural Journalists of Catalonia. Iturbe wrote The Librarian of Auschwitz when he... Read The Librarian of Auschwitz Summary

Gae Polisner’s The Memory of Things is a realistic historical young adult novel that begins immediately after the attack on the World Trade Center on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. Main character Kyle Donahue, 16, evacuates Manhattan across the Brooklyn Bridge with thousands of other shocked and fearful New Yorkers. When Kyle sees a girl his age wearing white wings cowering close to the bridge’s edge, he convinces her to go home with him, where he... Read The Memory of Things Summary

The Pull of the Stars, published in 2020, is a work of historical fiction by Emma Donoghue, an Irish Canadian playwright, literary historian, novelist, and screenwriter. The novel was longlisted for the Giller Prize. Told from the first-person point of view of protagonist Julia Power, the story is set at an Ireland hospital during the influenza pandemic of 1918, which was also the last year of World War I. While most of the characters are... Read The Pull of the Stars Summary

The Rock and the River is a young adult historical fiction work that earned author Kekla Magoon the Coretta Scott King John Steptoe New Talent Award upon its publication in 2009. Set in the 1960s Civil Rights era, the story’s protagonist, Samuel Childs, is the son of a famous activist who worked alongside Dr. King and the brother of a teenager involved with a local Black Panther group. The tensions between the historical “passive resistance”... Read The Rock and The River Summary

The Second Mrs. Astor: A Novel of the Titanic is adult historical fiction written by New York Times bestselling author Shana Abé and published in 2021 by Kensington. The novel recounts the love affair of Madeleine Talmage Force and John Jacob Astor IV, one of the wealthiest men in America. Seventeen-year-old Madeleine endures fierce public scrutiny for her courtship and subsequent marriage to the divorced and much older Astor, but after she survives the sinking... Read The Second Mrs. Astor Summary