7 Great Works of Diverse Historical Fiction

Under a Painted Sky, by Stacey Lee
If your only experience with the Oregon Trail is the video game in which your family keeps dying of cholera, you need this book. If you love ballsy, tough-as-nails girl protagonists, you need this book. If you like adventure stories of any stripe, yes, you need this book. During the Gold Rush days in a small Missouri town, recently orphaned Chinese-American teen Samantha commits an accidental but righteous crime. She and new friend Annamae, an African American slave, dress as boys and flee, setting off on a dangerous westward trek along the Oregon Trail. Falling in with a trio of cowboys both helps and complicates their journey, and the integration into the story of the girls’ background and beliefs and Lee’s impeccable research make it unputdownable.

Lies We Tell Ourselves, by Robin Talley
This daring dual narrative and barrier-breaking romance unfolds in a newly integrated high school in small-town Virginia in 1959, told by two teen girls on opposite sides of the civil rights divide. Linda is the white daughter of a segregationist writer, Sarah one of her school’s first black students. Sarah is exposed to vile daily abuse from her new classmates, with Linda chief among her tormentors. But their confrontations bloom into something unexpected and beautifully defiant when the two are forced to work on a school project together. In getting inside the minds of characters on both the wrong and right sides of history, Talley creates an incredibly rich, nuanced story that dismantles both girls’ limiting beliefs about themselves and the world, expressed through insidious chapter title “lies” such as, “None of this has anything to do with me.”

Flygirl, by Sherri L. Smith
In the early 1940s, civilian female pilot unit the WASPs (Women Airforce Service Pilots) was formed, and over 25,000 women applied. In Flygirl, 18-year-old Ida Mae Jones sees the WASPs as her only chance to fly. But, as a light-skinned black woman, she must pass as white to do it. She and her fellow WASPs face misogyny in the ranks, and Ida Mae lives with the ever-present fear of discovery—as well as the pressure of holding onto her identity when she’s living a life that denies it. Smith’s book also moves beyond Ida Mae’s trials to vividly depict her expanded new world, full of opportunities previously unheard of for women.

Secret Keeper, by Mitali Perkins
16-year-old Asha is a would-be feminist and athlete confined to her uncle’s strict household in 1970s Calcutta, following her father’s departure to seek work in America. The “secret keeper” of the title is her diary, which she finds solace in confiding in on her uncle’s rooftop. A forbidden friendship with the boy next door lightens her load, which includes family troubles and the heavy weight of traditional gender expectations. Her story is often difficult but shot through with hope, and leavened by vivid details on Indian life and culture.

Black Dove, White Raven, by Elizabeth Wein
NEW ELIZABETH WEIN BOOK HERE. Did you need more information? When best friends and partnered stunt pilots Delia and Rhoda—the “Black Dove” and “White Raven” of the title—crash during a show, Delia dies and Rhoda survives, and is determined to realize her friend’s wish that her son, Teo, be brought up in a place free of discrimination against African Americans. Delia takes Teo and her own daughter to peaceful Ethiopia, the homeland of Teo’s father, but their idyllic life on a coffee farm is soon shattered by Italian invasion. The book is filled with letters, stories, and flight logs, and opens with the same immediate tension that made Wein’s Code Name Verity an absolute page-turner.

Girl in Reverse, by Barbara Stuper
As the adopted daughter of a white Kansas City family during the height of the Korean War, Asian American Lily faces daily discrimination because of the way she looks. Her parents are dismissive of both Lily’s struggles and her questions about her past, preferring she pretend at being just like her classmates. But when her younger brother discovers a box of gorgeous Chinese artifacts left for her by her birth mother, she uses them to unlock the mystery of the woman who abandoned her, and learns to embrace the heritage she once wished she could shed.

Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi
Satrapi’s indispensable graphic novel memoir tells the tale of her childhood in Tehran, including the tumultuous years of the Islamic Revolution (1978–79). In sensitively rendered ink drawings, Satrapi evokes the full range of human expression, following her younger self through trials ranging from the social to the political, from upheaval in Tehran’s streets to life in the clutches of her loving family to high school in Vienna. It’s a book you’ll want to read at a breathless pace, to let the range of Satrapi’s experience wash over you, and to marvel at what she can accomplish and illuminate in writing from a young person’s perspective.