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Historical fiction is a genre where the plot takes place in a setting that is located sometime in history or the past. The characters and plot are usually fictional, but the context of the text works to be historically accurate to the best of its ability.

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Character - behavior that is historically accurate

Setting - Historical time and place

Dialogue - appropriate language for the historical context

Theme - usually has to do with historical struggles such as war and survival

Plot - the plot may be fictional, but nonfictional details may be incorporated

Conflict - conflict is accurate to historical conflicts

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Focusing on early elementary grades, one teaching idea is to incorporate role playing and storytelling into historical fiction. To help younger students understand historical fiction, it could be beneficial to have them act out what is happening in the story. Historical fiction often presents students with characters where they want to put themselves in their shoes. By acting out certain scenes in a story, students can literally put themselves into their shoes.

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Storytelling and Story Acting - Focus on Early Learning

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At the heart of storytelling and story acting is listening - adults listening to children, children listening to their classmates, and children listening to adults - all in service of better understanding each other's ideas and enjoying each others' stories. Learn more in the video above and the resources below.

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Focusing on intermediate elementary grades, one teaching idea for teaching historical fiction is to help students understand what a fact in the book is and what is fiction. This would involve teaching a lesson before reading a novel with facts that would give students background knowledge about a historical event. Then, when students start to read the book, it will be easier for them to navigate what is fact and what is fiction in the novel.

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Making the Distinction Between Facts and Truth in Historical Fiction - Highlights Foundation

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List three historical events that shake you somehow. Maybe they’re awful or full of grace or so unlikely they are hard to believe. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is […]

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Focusing on middle schoolers, one teaching idea for teaching historical fiction is to write a biography about a certain character in a historical fiction novel. This biography could include a sketch of the character, events in the characters life, what historical events they lived through, what motivated the character, etc. Having students focus on one character in a novel can help them connect that character to a person that lived in real life through the historical event that character is connected to.

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Traveling the Road to Freedom Through Research and Historical Fiction | Read Write Think

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One way to effectively teach historical fiction is to have students create written extensions of the novel they had read. One way I think this would be engaging for students is to have them write an alternate ending to how the book ends. It is obvious that if it weren't for some historical events, our world would look very different today. Students could explore this idea by writing about how the story would be completely different if it ended in a different manner.

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Transform Story Endings Overnight with These Simple Teaching Techniques

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Enjoy these easy ways to teach students how to write effective story endings. Examples, activities, and planning suggestions you can use with your class.

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Another way to effectively teach historical fiction is to have students assigned a "side" and they can debate a topic or issue that is presented in their novel. History often includes opposing sides with different perspectives and views. It could be beneficial for students to step into a role and understand why one side of an argument sees something in a certain manner. This goes beyond historical fiction and can help students see other peoples perspectives outside of the classroom.

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Practical Tips for Introducing Debate in Elementary School

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With guidance, students in grades 3 through 5 can build communication and critical thinking skills through lively discussions.

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PINK AND SAY by Patricia Polacco , Patricia Polacco | Kirkus Reviews

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A white youth from Ohio, Sheldon Russell Curtis (Say), and a black youth from Georgia, Pinkus Aylee (Pink), meet as young soldiers with the Union army.

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"When Jessie Came Across the Sea" by Amy Hest

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"When Jessie Came Across the Sea" by Amy Hest

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With this tale of a 13-year-old girl's journey from a shtetl in Eastern Europe to America, Hest (Love You, Soldier) simply and faithfully holds a mirror to the milestone event for millions of turn-of-the-century immigrants. The graceful sentiment with which she conveys her story, however, renders the familiar plot newly gratifying. When the village rabbi gives Jessie a ticket to America, she dreads leaving the grandmother who has raised her since the death of her parents. But she bravely makes the voyage, and sews lace diligently for three years in New York until she saves enough money to send for her grandmother. Along the way she develops a talent for sewing bridal gowns, and before she takes leave of the reader, she becomes a bride herself. The elements of the plot fall neatly into place, and Hest communicates the heroine's courage and maturity convincingly and without fanfare. The subtle, emotional exposition is enriched by Lynch's (The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey) dramatically charged watercolor and gouache illustrations. The candlelit and sunlit compositions express the yearnings of the immigrants; their faces form a study in hope, loss and dignity. A compassionate, heartening view of an archetypal American experience. Ages 6-12. (Nov.)

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When Jessie Came Across the Sea by Amy Hest

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With this tale of a 13-year-old girl's journey from a shtetl in Eastern Europe to America, Hest (Love You, Soldier) simply and f...

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Young Cal lives high in Kentucky’s Appalachian Mountains. Sister Lark keeps her nose in a book nearly from daybreak to dusty dark. Cal’s a mite suspicious—and more than a mite resentful—of this, as he spends most of his time helping Pap with chores. One day, he spies a sorrel mare clippity-clopping slowly up the mountain; the rider’s not a man neither, but a lady wearing britches! She carries a passel of books in her saddle packs; all the family (exceptin’ Cal) welcomes her warmly. Back she comes several times a year, no matter how bad the weather. This causes Cal to wonder why she’s so dedicated, and he asks Lark to help him learn to read. By the time the Pack Horse Librarian appears again, she’s made another convert. Small’s illustrations, combining ink, watercolor and chalk, add an appropriately earthy warmth, complementing the precise prose beautifully. Every line oozes character: The hound dog’s ears flop like nobody’s business, and Cal’s face in the foreground displays every emotion as he moves from scowling suspicion to wonder. (author’s note) (Picture book. 4-8)

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"One Big Open Sky" by Lesa Cline-Ransome

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"One Big Open Sky" by Lesa Cline-Ransome

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An African American girl and her family experience hardships as they leave Mississippi for a better life out West.

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Behar ( Lucky Broken Girl)delivers a moving tale about four generations of a Sephardic Jewish family navigating cultural and societal upheaval from 1492 to 2003. When the Spanish Inquisition forces 12-year-old Benvenida and her family to flee from Toledo, Spain, the religious refugees settle in what is now Istanbul. In 1923, an act of defiance sees Benvenida's descendant, 12-year-old Reina, banished by her father from Turkey to Cuba. Subsequent years follow Reina's daughter Alegra who, in 1961, teaches literacy in the Cuban countryside, until political unrest prompt her to emigrate to Miami. And in 2003, Alegra's Afro-Cuban daughter Paloma unravels her ancestors' history during a trip to Spain. Divided into four parts, this enlightening read depicts one family's determination to embrace and preserve her Jewish identity and offers glimpses into the long history of Jews in Spain. Behar crafts each included era with painstaking period detail and lush language, delivering a stunning portrayal of immigration and Jewish culture and religion that expounds upon the importance of remaining true to oneself, explores themes of prejudice and racism, and exposes the harm that bigotry can inflict on both individuals and society. The author includes English translations alongside songs and words in Ladino; concluding source notes add further historical context. Ages 10-up. Agent: Alyssa Eisner Henkin, Birch Path Literary. (Feb.)

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Behar (Lucky Broken Girl) delivers a moving tale about four generations of a Sephardic Jewish family navigating cultural and soc...

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"The War That Saved My Life" by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

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"The War That Saved My Life" by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

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From the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series , Vol. 14

by Jeff Kinney ; illustrated by Jeff Kinney ‧

The Heffley family's house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.

When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg's mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family's cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves-during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and-most serious-civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work's been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house-and with the school's dismal standardized test scores as a final straw-Greg's mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn't want to lose his best friend). While Greg's positive about the move, he's not completely uncaring about Rowley's action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the "stress lizard" brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special-style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.

Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)

Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2019

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THE WAR THAT SAVED MY LIFE | Kirkus Reviews

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From the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series , Vol. 14 by Jeff Kinney ; illustrated by Jeff Kinney ‧ The Heffley family's house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement. When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family.