Historical Fiction

How do you choose between love and honour? Fleance, the 2-year old son of Scottish thane Banquo has been living rough in the words of northern England since he escaped on that fateful night ten years ago when his father was brutally murdered. He has never told anyone who he is because he has yet to discover who wanted him dead but he has learnt things - how to survive, how to use a cross bow, how...

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 outrun polio. Your family can't hide from it. And nobody knows where it will strike next.

It is Dargaville, in the mid 1920s. Through her diary, eleven-year-old Ivana Ivanovich introduces us to her Dalmatian community. Ivana's life revolves around the local convent school, Saturday matinées, and the boarding house she calls home. Novel based around the authors personal experiences, includes photographs and factual information. Suggested level: intermediate, junior secondary.

The diary of Lillian Glenmore who is sent with her sister Joyce to live with their parental grandparents on a diary farm when their mother becomes concerned about Lillian's health and the chance that Joyce could be manpowered into a war job. Neither girl is keen to go. Then at the end of February 1943 5,000 American troops arrive. Suggested level: intermediate, junior secondary.

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 that when my mouth can no longer utter the words, the paper will keep them for my children's...

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 boards the ferry Wahine for a voyage to Wellington. Suggested level: primary, intermediate.

A junior fiction title in the established My Story series. In the 1970s the NZ government established a fund to allow the establishment of ohu, a commune-based farming co-operative. Starshine (previously known as Estelle) is whisked off against her wishes to live with her mother in the Aquarius ohu. Commune living is very different - it definitely has its bad points but there are good points too,...

The diary of fourteen year-old Amy McDonald who lives in the harsh environment of the Milford Road Public Works Camp, along with her mother and seven year old brother, Bruce. Her father has been employed as workshop supervisor on the dangerous project of building the Milford Road and Homer Tunnel, cutting through the Southern Alps. Suggested level: intermediate, junior secondary.

Sam is 14 when he signs on as a cabin boy aboard a vessel bound for Sydney. The barque Dundonald founders and sinks off Disappointment Island in the southern ocean. Fifteen survivors endure a harsh winter on this remote island until their rescue in late November. 6 March 2007 marks 100 years since the wreck of the Dundonald, and this incredible story of survival. Although Sam is a fictional...

New Zealand is at war when Silvey starts her diary but for Silvey this is just a backdrop to the main issues of her world - the closure of her school and the arrival of Chinese-American soldiers. Suggested level: intermediate, junior secondary.

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 returns home, after a long absence, it is a help - but with him come other troubles. Katie records...

Young adult reading. In the 1880s German Lutheran immigrants established a settlement at Sarau, near Nelson. The area has since been renamed Upper Moutere. The author, Leone Morris, discovered diaries written by her grandfather's cousin that capture the palce and time of this story and helped her to create Emilie, a young girl struggling against the restrictions of the community. It is time for...

Mary and her family moved to New Zealand from Australia, ahead of her father, who intended following later. But unforeseen events kept Mr Brogan in Australia for the past seven years and Mary's mother has had to cope with raising the two children on her own. The family are now living in poverty in the Dunedin where her mother has made it clear Mary must leave school and start contributing. But...

Laura Anne Findlay lives among giants - the mighty kauri trees of the Coromandel forest. It is the 1920s, and the last remnants of kauri forest are being cleared for timber and farmland. When Laura's father becomes ill, the family is split up. Laura's mother takes a job as a bush cook in a kauri logging camp, with Laura as her offsider. In her diary, Laura keeps a record of the rough-and-ready...

It is 1981 and Martin senses big trouble brewing at home. The South African rugby team has been invited to tour New Zealand. Martin's sister, Sarah, is out to stop the tour in protest against South Africa's racist apartheid system. His rugby-mad dad is equally determined that the tour should go ahead. And Mum is behaving oddly. Then a new school leads to a new friendship, and Martin is faced with...

On the continent of the Americas, in the early stages of modern man's development, one tribe invented the Clovis point - a stone arrowhead combined with a throwing stick that would be the equivalent of the invention of the nuclear bomb many hundreds of years later. The technology changes the balance of power within the scattered tribes and ensured that not only the fittest would be able to kill...

Flavia and her friends are on a quest for the Emperor Titus - to steal a valuable gemstone known as 'Nero's Eye'. The Delphic Oracle prophesied that whoever owns the gem will rule Rome - so Titus is determined to claim it for himself. Their travels take them across the Roman province of Mauretania, from Sabratha (in modern Libya) to Volubilis (Morocco). As they travel on a caravan across the...

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still. By her brother's graveside, Liesel Meminger's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is "The Gravedigger's Handbook", left there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words, as...

September AD 80. Flavia and her friends go to Rome to celebrate the Festival of Jupiter at Senator Cornix's town house. When a famous racehorse goes missing, Nubia sets out to recover it. The four friends find themselves caught up in a plot against one of the rival factions, the Greens. Who is trying to sabotage the charioteers? Could it be an inside job, or someone with a grudge from long ago?...

Ten years ago, Alaric, leader of the Shadowmen, killed many of the Keepers - the teachers and bearers of ancient knowledge threatening his barbaric rule. Now rebellion is flaring up in the Archipelago again and the Shadowmen are out hunting for Keepers once more. Fourteen-year-old, Nyssa, and her uncle, Marius, descendants of the Keepers, must flee, but there is a greater reason that Nyssa is in...

September AD 81. Returning from Ephesus to Rome, Flavia and her friends learn of the mysterious and sudden death of the Emperor Titus. Was his death natural? Or was it murder? As the four detectives investigate this mystery, they little dream how much their lives - as well as the future of Italia - will be changed as a result. At last, many of the questions Roman Mysteries fans have been burning...

It's August, AD 81. Presumed dead by their families but wanted by unknown authorities, Flavia and her friends feel very far from home. News of more kidnappings in Italia reach them, and when they discover one of Miriam's twins is among the missing, the four detectives set out for Halicarnassus in the Roman province of Asia. Here they find the countryside is full of prophets who heal the sick and...

The year is 1859 and the Small family arrives in the Canterbury colony without a penny to their name. Mother and six children have a hard beginning to their new life - all the more since they are runaways from a cruel father and husband in Australia. But there are adventures ahead . . . This long-established and well-loved classic by renowned author Elsie Locke was first published in 1965.