Exploring Hidden Histories through young adult historical fiction is a great way to give your students autonomy in choosing their texts while also allowing them to explore unknown history. Most students can be encouraged to read when they are legitimately interested in the topic. And this is especially true when the topics are hidden histories.
What are hidden histories?
Hidden history is a little known historical topic. Often these are the stories of the marginalized. Hidden histories focus on the fascinating stories glossed over by the history textbooks. And, in recent years, historical fiction literature has really started to dive deep into exploring the history that we didn’t learn in school.
Harnessing the Power of Young Adult Historical Fiction
Building literature circles around these historical fiction novels for teens is a great way to encourage students to explore the essential question: What is the benefit of bringing history out of the darkness? And, How and why does history hold secrets? Pair these questions with research and creative writing to build a strong historical fiction unit.
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11 Historical Fiction Novels for Teens
This list of novels include titles that have appeared on the AP Literature Open Question lists as well as novels that my own high school daughter and my own students have read and enjoyed.
One: American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson
This one appeared on the list of suggested titles on the 2025 exam. This book might be called a thriller. It is loaded with intrigue and mystery. And, I don’t know about your district, but we do not have a lot of thrillers on our approved list. Marie Mitchell, a young Black intelligence officer, finds herself stuck in a dead-end FBI job. She makes moves to get noticed. However, this doesn’t go as she would hope. The story opens in with an intruder entering Marie’s house. She kills him (not a spoiler this happens within the first chapter).
She then flees to Martinique where her mother lives. There she slowly reveals the story of how she became a target. It involves a dangerous undercover job she took to infiltrate the inner circle of inner circle of Thomas Sankara, the charismatic and revolutionary president of Burkina Faso, Marie finds herself caught between duty, ideology, and a hidden truth about American foreign policy in Africa. This book delves into the often-unseen roles of women and people of color in espionage and international relations. This stories asks us to question who gets to write history and whose stories are deemed important.
Two: The Queen of Sugar Hill by ReShonda Tate
This novel exposes the hidden (not so hidden) racism in Hollywood during the 1940s and 1950s. It is the story of Hattie McDaniel, the first woman (person) of color to earn an Oscar for her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind. It documents her friendship with Clark Gable and the fallout of winning. The story explores McDaniel’s struggles with racism, her complex relationship with the roles she played, and the hidden sacrifices she made to carve out a career within the prejudice of Hollywood. It’s a powerful look at the personal history behind a public figure and the systemic racism people of color faced in Hollywood and elsewhere.
Three: The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
Ford’s novel recounts the experience of being of Chinese descent in the Pacific Northwest during World War II after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and during the period of Japanese Internment. The main character, Henry Lee, falls in love with Keiko Okabe, a Japanese American girl. The novel explores themes of prejudice, forbidden love, and the lasting impact of injustice. It uncovers the hidden history of Japanese Americans during a shameful period of U.S. history and the quiet resilience of those involved.
Four: As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh
I didn’t have enough copies of this book to honor the requests of my students interested in reading it this past school year. It is set in 1990’s Syria during the Civil War. Salama Kassab is a pharmacy student who volunteers at a hospital in Homs. There, she witnesses unspeakable things. She wants to escape the country, but also feels compelled to stay for the people of her city. This novel highlights the hidden history of how modern conflicts impact average people and the importance of resilience and hope.
Five: Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier
This novel is one that your students interested in the history of evolution will find compelling. It takes place in England on the Dorset coast where the first dinosaur fossils were discovered. The novel chronicles the true story of Mary Anning, a working-class woman who became a pioneering fossil hunter. She made groundbreaking discoveries that challenged scientific and religious beliefs of the time. Despite her contributions in this field, her gender and social status often meant her work was overlooked or credited to men. The book highlights the hidden figures of scientific history and the societal barriers that prevented recognition.
Six: My Father, the Panda Killer by Jamie Jo Hoang
This is a book my librarian and I sought out to fill a gap in our list. There are lots of books about the Vietnam War from the American perspective, but very few from the Vietnamese perspective.
Using dual timelines, Hoang’s novel explores the complexities of family secrets surrounding Vietnamese forced to flee Vietnam in the 1970s and 1980s. The main character, Jane, lives in California, 1999. It is just her immigrant father, her younger brother and her. As she prepares to leave for college, she worries about leaving her brother to the “chronic angers of the house” (not part of the story, but the quote from the Robert Hayden poem seems appropriate).
The second timeline is that of her father, Phúc (pronounced /fo͞ok/, rhymes with duke), takes place in Vietnam, 1975. There is war and there is escape.
Seven: I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys
My freshman daughter LOVED this book. She read it twice, once for herself and then again when she petitioned her teacher to read it for independent reading in place of a dystopian novel. She hates dystopian novels. And she has read enough of them to know that it’s a genre thing and not a title thing. So, she suggested to her teacher that this young adult historical fiction book mirrored all the qualities of dystopian. And it does. So her teacher permitted her to read it instead of a dystopian novel.
The book takes place in Romania, 1989. They are under totalitarian rule. People cannot trust their neighbors and with good reason. Cristian Florescu is a high school student approached by the secret police to spy for them. In return, they will give him medication that his grandfather needs to survive. Cristian loves no one more than his grandfather, so he agrees. The deeper he gets, the more he is torn by what he is doing.
Eight: We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter
This novel is based on the true experience of Hunter’s Polish-Jewish relatives who were all successful in evading death at the hands of the Nazi’s. (Not a spoiler, it’s in the title.) In an interview with Anne Bogel, she called this book historical fiction because she believed by creating dialogue she was fictionalizing their experiences. It is the harrowing story of the 5 siblings, their significant others, their children and their parents escape from the Nazis. It is not a straight line and they get separated for a variety of reasons. But in the end, they were the lucky ones.
Nine: The Rose Code by Kate Quinn
Here is another book that your math/science students may be into. During World War II, there was a network of mostly women working as codebreakers at Bletchley Park, Britain’s top-secret intelligence center. It was their job to use codebreaking tools to translate intercepted messages from the Germans. The novel focuses on three different women and what brings them into this world and their friendship and how the trials of war tears them apart.
Ten: Good Night, Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea
The main character, Irene Woodward, joins the Red Cross to do her part for World War II where she works in comfort trucks called “Clubmobiles.” They called the women who ran these trucks “Donut Dollies.” When I describe it to my students, I tell them it is like running a food truck on the front lines. She befriends a woman named Dorothy. Together they move with troops all over Europe including the Battle of the Bulge and the liberation of Buchenwald. Urrea based this novel on the experience of his own mother during World War II.
Eleven: The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
When Elwood Curtis, a black boy growing up in 1960s Tallahassee, lands in front of a judge for a crime he did not commit, the judge “does him a favor” and sends him to reform school instead of jail. The school called Nickel Academy believes in corporal punishment and a two tiered system of discipline. The only way to survive is to go unnoticed.
Whitehead recounts the story of the real Dozier School for Boys, a brutal reform school in Florida and highlights the injustice of the justice system.
Using Young Adult Historical Fiction in High School English
Looking for a way to add more historical fiction novels for teens in your curriculum, try Teaching Rhetorical Analysis Through Hidden Histories Literature Circles. This unit focuses on using historical fiction for rhetorical analysis. It is perfect for AP Language classes or other high school classes that hone in on rhetorical analysis.
Related Resources
Teaching Rhetorical Analysis Through Hidden Histories Literature Circles
Rethinking Literature Circle Roles: High School Book Clubs that Build Skills
High School Literature Circles: 7 Lessons After Nearly 20 years
How to Use the Literature Circle in AP Literature
