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The Master Puppeteer

Katherine Paterson · back to the book

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24 books with the same feel

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❤️

The Way of the Warrior

Chris Bradford

JapanMiddle GradeTeen ProtagonistHistorical Fiction
❤️

Heart of a Samurai

Margi Preus · 318 pages

In 1841, rescued by an American whaler after a terrible shipwreck leaves him and his four companions castaways on a remote island, fourteen-year-old Manjiro, who dreams of becoming a samurai, learns new laws and customs as he becomes the first Japanese person to set foot in the United States.

JapanMiddle GradeTeen ProtagonistHistorical Fiction
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The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn

Dorothy Hoobler, Thomas Hoobler · 214 pages

While attempting to solve the mystery of a stolen jewel, Seikei, a merchant's son who longs to be a samurai, joins a group of kabuki actors in eighteenth-century Japan.

JapanMiddle GradeTeen ProtagonistHistorical Fiction
❤️

Holes

Louis Sachar · 240 pages

Stanley Yelnats is under a curse. A curse that began with his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing great-great-grandfather and has since followed generations of Yelnatses. Now Stanley has been unjustly sent to a boys' detention center, Camp Green Lake, where the boys build character by spending all day, every day, digging holes exactly five feet wide and five feet deep. There is no lake at Camp Green

Class StruggleTeen ProtagonistMiddle GradeMale Lead
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The Prince and the Pauper

Mark Twain · 270 pages

Class StruggleMiddle GradeTeen ProtagonistHistorical Fiction
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Bud, Not Buddy

Christopher Paul Curtis · 249 pages

It's 1936, in Flint, Michigan. Times may be hard, and ten-year-old Bud may be a motherless boy on the run, but Bud's got a few things going for him: 1. He has his own suitcase filled with his own important, secret things. 2. He's the author of Bud Caldwell's Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself. 3. His momma never told him who his father was, but

Class StruggleMiddle GradeHistorical FictionMale Lead
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Esperanza Rising

Pam Munoz Ryan · 262 pages

Esperanza and her mother are forced to leave their life of wealth and privilege in Mexico to go work in the labor camps of Southern California, where they must adapt to the harsh circumstances facing Mexican farm workers on the eve of the Great Depression.

Class StruggleMiddle GradeTeen ProtagonistHistorical Fiction
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Angel on the Square

Gloria Whelan · 293 pages

In 1913 Russia, twelve-year-old Katya eagerly anticipates leaving her St. Petersburg home, though not her older cousin Misha, to join her mother, a lady in waiting in the household of Tsar Nicholas II, but the ensuing years bring world war, revolution, and undreamed of changes to her life.

Class StruggleMiddle GradeTeen ProtagonistHistorical Fiction
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King of Shadows

Susan Cooper · 186 pages

While in London as part of an all-boy acting company preparing to perform in a replica of the famous Globe Theatre, Nat Field suddenly finds himself transported back to 1599 and performing in the original theater under the tutelage of Shakespeare himself.

Middle GradeTeen ProtagonistHistorical FictionMale Lead
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The Japanese Tsunami, 2011

Lauren Tarshis · 83 pages

JapanMiddle GradeHistorical FictionMale Lead
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The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle

Avi · 235 pages

As the only passenger, and the only female, on a transatlantic voyage in 1832, thirteen-year-old Charlotte finds herself caught between a murderous captain and a mutinous crew.

Class StruggleMiddle GradeTeen ProtagonistHistorical Fiction
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Counting on Grace

Elizabeth Winthrop · 240 pages

1910. Pownal, Vermont. At 12, Grace and her best friend Arthur must leave school and go to work as a "doffers" on their mothers' looms in the mill. Grace's mother is the best worker, fast and powerful, and Grace desperately wants to help her. But she's left handed and doffing is a right-handed job. Grace's every mistake costs her mother, and the family. She only feels capable on Sundays, when she

Class StruggleMiddle GradeTeen ProtagonistHistorical Fiction
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Dreams in the Golden Country: The Diary of Zipporah Feldman, a Jewish Immigrant Girl, New York City, 1903

Kathryn Lasky · 190 pages

New dreams and old traditions flourish and clash when a Jewish girl and her family emigrate from Russia to America.

Class StruggleMiddle GradeHistorical FictionTeen Protagonist
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When the Whistle Blows

Fran Cannon Slayton · 162 pages

Jimmy lives in Rowlesburg, West Virginia, during the 1940s. He does all the things boys do in the small mountain town: plays a mean game of football, pulls the unforgettable Halloween prank with his friends in the Platoon, and promises to head off into the woods on the first day of hunting season no matter what. He also knows his father belongs to a secret society, and is determined to uncover the

Middle GradeTeen ProtagonistHistorical FictionMale Lead
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Sounder

William H. Armstrong · 116 pages

Angry and humiliated when his sharecropper father is jailed for stealing food for his family, a young black boy grows in courage and understanding by learning to read and through his relationship with his devoted dog Sounder.

Class StruggleMiddle GradeHistorical FictionFather and Son
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Hear My Sorrow: The Diary of Angela Denoto, a Shirtwaist Worker, New York City 1909 (Dear America Series)

Deborah Hopkinson · 188 pages

ngela and her family have arrived in New York City from their village in Italy to find themselves settled in a small tenement apartment on the Lower East Side. When her father is no longer able to work, Angela must leave school and work in a shirtwaist factory. Against the backdrop of the birth of the labor union movement in the early 1900s, Angela plays a part in the drama and turmoil that erupt

Class StruggleMiddle GradeHistorical FictionTeen Protagonist
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Midnight Is a Place

Joan Aiken · 303 pages

In northern England in 1842, fourteen-year-old Lucas leads a lonely, monotonous existence in the house of his unpleasant guardian until the unexpected arrival of an unusual little girl presages a series of events that completely change his life.

Class StruggleMiddle GradeTeen ProtagonistHistorical Fiction
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Old Yeller

Fred Gipson · 158 pages

At first, Travis couldn't stand the sight of Old Yeller. The stray dog was ugly, and a thieving rascal, too. But he sure was clever, and a smart dog could be a big help on the wild Texas frontier, especially with Papa away on a long cattle drive up to Abilene. Strong and courageous, Old Yeller proved that he could protect Travis's family from any sort of danger. But can Travis do the same for O

Middle GradeTeen ProtagonistHistorical FictionMale Lead
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My friend Flicka

Mary O'Hara · 318 pages

Middle GradeTeen ProtagonistMale LeadFather and Son
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Johnny Tremain

Esther Forbes · 270 pages

Johnny Tremain, a young apprentice silversmith, is caught up in the danger and excitement of 1775 Boston, just before the Revolutionary War. But even more gripping than living through the drama of Revolutionary Boston is the important discovery Johnny makes in his own life.

Middle GradeTeen ProtagonistHistorical FictionMale Lead
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All the Pretty Horses

Cormac McCarthy · 301 pages

*All the Pretty Horses* is a novel by American author Cormac McCarthy published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1992. Its romanticism (in contrast to the bleakness of McCarthy's earlier work) brought the writer much public attention. It was a bestseller, and it won both the U.S. National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Along with *The Crossing* (1994), and C*ities of the Plain* (19

Class StruggleTeen ProtagonistHistorical FictionMale Lead
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The Trumpeter of Krakow

Eric P. Kelly · 208 pages

A Polish family in the Middle Ages guards a great secret treasure and a boy's memory of an earlier trumpeter of Krakow makes it possible for him to save his father.

Middle GradeHistorical FictionTeen ProtagonistFather and Son
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Life: An Exploded Diagram

Mal Peet · 400 pages

In 1960s Norfolk, England, seventeen-year-old Clem Ackroyd lives with his mother and grandmother in a tiny cottage, but his life is transformed when he falls in love with the daughter of a wealthy farmer in this tale that flashes back through the stories of three generations.

Class StruggleTeen ProtagonistHistorical FictionMale Lead
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Naruto, Vol. 01: The Tests of the Ninja

Masashi Kishimoto · 192 pages

JapanTeen ProtagonistMiddle GradeMale Lead

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