29 Best 20th Century, Juvenile Fiction Books

A heartbreaking, heart-mending novel of love, grief, friendship, and community.

March 1987. The FDA has just approved AZT as the first drug to treat AIDS. But it’s too late for Iris’s dad. He’s dying, confined to a hospital bed in the apartment he shares with his boyfriend, J.R. (who Iris hates), four floors above Iris and her mom. Soon, all Iris has left of her kind, loving dad are memories, photos, and a binder full of the poems they used to exchange.

As Iris navigates her rage and grief, she resolves to speak out against the rampant fear, misinformation, and prejudice surrounding AIDS–and find the pieces of Dad that she never knew before. In the process, she discovers surprising sides to J.R., the joy of true friendship, and the power of her own voice in school and at home.

Award-winning author Ami Polonsky has crafted a lyrical, tender, earth-shattering novel that will stay with you long after you’ve turned the last page.

Four starred reviews!

“Told in a voice that is so real it reeks of filched peaches, this book is a home run.” –Amy Sarig King, Printz Award-winning author of Dig and The Year We Fell from Space

Sandlot meets Esperanza Rising in this “vividly rendered, emotionally vulnerable” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) middle grade historical novel about a strong-willed girl who finds her voice in a tale of moxie, peaches, and determination to thrive despite the odds.

When the skies dried up, Gloria thought it was temporary. When the dust storms rolled in, she thought they would pass. But now the bank man’s come to take the family farm, and Pa’s decided to up and move to California in search of work. They’ll pick fruit, he says, until they can save up enough money to buy land of their own again.

There are only three rules at the Santa Ana Holdsten Peach Orchard:
No stealing product.
No drunkenness or gambling.
And absolutely no organizing.

Well, Gloria Mae Willard isn’t about to organize any peaches, no ma’am. She’s got more on her mind than that. Like the secret, all-boys baseball team she’s desperate to play for, if only they’d give her a chance. Or the way that wages keep going down. The way their company lodgings are dirty and smelly, and everyone seems intent on leaving her out of everything.

But Gloria has never been the type to wait around for permission. If the boys won’t let her play, she’ll find a way to make them. If the people around her are keeping secrets, then she’ll keep a few of her own. And if the boss men at the Santa Ana Holdsten Peach Orchard say she can’t organize peaches, then by golly she’ll organize a whole ball game.

In this fifth and final title in the popular Bakers Mountain Stories, the Honeycutt
family are wrestling with monumental changes taking place at the end of 1959.
The world is at odds with the Soviet Union, and the Honeycutts are worried about
the threat of communism. Unrest is also erupting throughout the country and
close to home as African Americans fight for acceptance and equality.
The youngest Honeycutt, Jackie, absorbs all these changes and tries to find his
way to what he believes is right. Jackie’s journey begins when he bumps into
Thomas Freeman fishing on the riverbank. He hopes the two of them can be
friends, but he quickly learns that racial inequalities and Jackie’s own behaviors
make the prospect of friendship challenging.
Amid community pushback to racial integration, bullying at school, and turmoil
within his family, Jackie struggles to free both his conscience and his voice and to
secure his friendship with Thomas.

With more than 1.5 million books sold, Dan Gutman’s Baseball Card Adventures series brings the greatest players in history to life! Featuring black-and-white photographs and stats throughout, plus back matter separating fact from fiction, Willie & Me is the perfect mix of history and action for every young baseball fan. Stosh thought he was finished traveling back in time. But then Ralph Branca shows up in his room one night, begging for Stosh’s help. In 1951, Branca pitched a ball to Bobby Thomson that would become the “Shot Heard Round the World,” a home run that won the National League pennant for the New York Giants and changed the lives of Branca and Thomson forever. Branca says the Giants were cheating, and he needs Stosh to use his power with baseball cards to go back in time and set things right. Stosh is determined to help, but he quickly learns that you can’t change just one little thing in history. If he erases the Shot Heard Round the World, he may forever alter the life of a young rookie named Willie Mays. With wisdom from all the players he has helped before-plus the surprise return of some familiar faces-Stosh uses his power to travel in time using baseball cards one last time in a fabulous finale to the adventure of a lifetime.

When the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 solidifies Castro’s power in Cuba, twelve-year-old Cumba’s family makes the difficult decision to send him to Florida alone. Faced with the prospect of living in another country by himself, he tries to remember the sound of his father’s clarinet, the smell of his mother’s lavender perfume. Life in the United States presents a whole new set of challenges. Lost in a sea of English speakers, Cumba has to navigate a new city, a new school, and new freedom all on his own. With each day, he feels more confident in his new surroundings, but he continues to wonder: Will his family ever be whole again? Or will they remain just out of reach, ninety miles across the sea?

A heartbreaking and powerful story about a black boy killed by a police officer, drawing connections through history, from award-winning author Jewell Parker Rhodes.

Only the living can make the world better. Live and make it better.

Twelve-year-old Jerome is shot by a police officer who mistakes his toy gun for a real threat. As a ghost, he observes the devastation that’s been unleashed on his family and community in the wake of what they see as an unjust and brutal killing.

Soon Jerome meets another ghost: Emmett Till, a boy from a very different time but similar circumstances. Emmett helps Jerome process what has happened, on a journey towards recognizing how historical racism may have led to the events that ended his life. Jerome also meets Sarah, the daughter of the police officer, who grapples with her father’s actions.

Once again Jewell Parker Rhodes deftly weaves historical and socio-political layers into a gripping and poignant story about how children and families face the complexities of today’s world, and how one boy grows to understand American blackness in the aftermath of his own death.

When thirteen-year-old Ann Fay Honeycutt’s father goes off to fight Hitler, he hands her a pair of blue overalls to become “man of the house.” Her feelings are mixed: “Wearing britches so I could take the place of my daddy wasn’t the same
as wearing them so I could climb trees.” Ann Fay fights her resentment at losing the life she’d known just as she fights to keep the weeds and the blue wisteria from overtaking the family vegetable garden. But when a polio outbreak changes
everything again, remarkable Ann Fay needs all of her guts and resolve to face the unpredictable future.

When eleven-year-old Langston’s mother dies in 1946, he and his father leave rural Alabama for Chicago’s brown belt as a part of what came to be known as the Great Migration. It’s lonely in the small apartment with just the two of them, and Langston is bullied at school. But his new home has one fantastic thing. Unlike the whites-only library in Alabama, the local public library welcomes everyone. There, hiding out after school, Langston discovers another Langston, a poet whom he learns inspired his mother enough to name her only son after him.

Clem can make anybody, even his grumpy older sisters, smile with his jokes. But when his family receives news that his father has died in the infamous Port Chicago disaster, everything begins to fall apart. Clem’s mother is forced to work long, tough hours as a maid for a wealthy white family. Soon Clem can barely recognize his home–and himself. Can he live up to his father’s legacy? In her award-winning trilogy, Lesa Cline-Ransome masterfully recreates mid-twentieth century America through the eyes of three boys: Langston, Lymon, and, now, Clem. Exploring the impact of the Great Migration, the Harlem Renaissance, Jim Crow laws, and much more, Lesa’s work manages at once to be both an intimate portrait of each boy and his family as well as a landscape of American history.

Black hands in Fayette County, Tennessee, were free to pick cotton and corn but were barred from casting ballots. A whirlwind of change blew through the county when Black landowners like John McFerren and Harpman Jameson organized
registration drives to help Black citizens vote–but not without violent attempts to stop it. White farmers evicted Black sharecroppers off their land, leaving families stranded and forced to live in tents. White shopkeepers also refused to sell to them.

But the voiceless did finally speak. In 1965 the Voting Rights Act legally ended voter discrimination. Alice Faye Duncan’s powerful words and Charly Palmer’s bold art not only capture the Tent City struggle but also the hope, determination, and unwavering courage of everyday people.

Dan Gutman has won a wide and growing audience among young readers, who have eagerly devoured all the books in the sports-loving author’s Baseball Card Adventure series. In Ted & Me, time-traveling Stosh has finally been found out by the FBI. Tasked with using his Ted Williams card to go back to 1941 to prevent the attack on Pearl Harbor, Stosh also seizes on the chance to help the Splendid Splinter add even more home runs to his already legendary tally.

Best-selling author Dan Gutman delights young readers with the what-if appeal and gentle humor of his Baseball Card Adventures, featuring a time-travelling boy who loves baseball. When Stosh travels into the past to meet Roberto Clemente, a legendary ballplayer and a beloved humanitarian, he’s got only one goal-to warn Roberto not to get on the doomed plane that will end his life in a terrible crash. “This series entry is both amusing and informative.”-Booklist

“Growing up on Beaver Island, Grand-pere told Norvia stories–stories about her ancestor Migizi, about Biboonke-o-nini the Wintermaker, about the Crane Clan and the Reindeer Clan. He sang her songs in the old language, and her grandmothers taught her to make story quilts and maple candy. On the island, Norvia was proud of her Ojibwe heritage. Things are different in the city. Here, Norvia’s mother forces her to pretend she’s not Native at all–even to Mr. Ward, Ma’s new husband, and to Vernon, Norvia’s irritating new stepbrother. In fact, there are a lot of changes in the city: ten-cent movies, gleaming soda shops, speedy automobiles, ninth grade. It’s dizzying for a girl who grew up on the forested shores of Lake Michigan. Despite the move and the looming threat of world war, Norvia and her siblings–all five of them–are determined to make 1914 their best year ever. Norvia is certain that her future depends upon it…and upon her discretion. But how can she have the best year ever if she has to hide who she is? Sensitive, enthralling, and classic in sensibility (perfect for Anne of Green Gables fans), this coming-of-age story about an introspective and brilliant Native American heroine addresses assimilation, racism, and divorce, as well as everygirl problems like first crushes, making friends, and the joys and pains of a blended family. Often funny, often heartbreaking, The Star That Always Stays is a fresh, vivid story directly inspired by Anna Rose Johnson’s family history.”

Debut author Brita Sandstrom arrives with an unforgettable modern folktale of the darkness around and inside us, and the courage it takes to keep hope alive.

“Hollow Chest is remarkable on so many levels–its exquisite writing, its startling originality, its deep empathy. An astonishing debut.” –Anne Ursu, award-winning author of The Lost Girl

Charlie has been having nightmares. Eyes watching him in the night, claws on his chest, holding him down. His dreams have been haunted for years, ever since German bombs rained down on London, taking his father’s life, taking his city’s spirit, taking his beloved brother, Theo, off to war in France.

Now Charlie is left to take care of his grandpa Fitz while his mother works, waiting for the day when Theo will come home. And with World War II nearly won, that day is almost here. Grandpa Fitz warns Charlie that soldiers sometimes come back missing a piece of themselves, but Charlie isn’t worried. Whatever Theo has lost, Charlie will help him find it.

When Theo finally does return, though, he is cold and distant. But Charlie refuses to accept that the brother he knew is gone, and soon, he discovers the reason for his brother’s change: war wolves. Terrifying ancient beasts who consume the hearts of those broken by grief.

The wolves have followed soldiers back home from the front. And if Charlie truly wants to save Theo, he’s going to have to find them and get his brother’s heart back. But can a heart that’s been eaten ever be replaced?

From the creative team behind the bestselling, Caldecott Medal–winning Finding Winnie comes an extraordinary wartime adventure seen through the eyes of the world’s most beloved bear.

Here is a heartwarming imagining of the real journey undertaken by the extraordinary bear who inspired Winnie-the-Pooh. From her early days with her mama in the Canadian forest, to her remarkable travels with the Veterinary Corps across the country and overseas, and all the way to the London Zoo where she met Christopher Robin Milne and inspired the creation of the world’s most famous bear, Winnie is on a great war adventure.

This beautifully told story is a triumphant blending of deep research and magnificent imagination. Infused with Sophie Blackall’s irresistible renderings of an endearing bear, the book is also woven through with entries from Captain Harry Colebourn’s real wartime diaries and contains a selection of artifacts from the Colebourn Family Archives. The result is a one-of-a-kind exploration into the realities of war, the meaning of courage, and the indelible power of friendship, all told through the historic adventures of one extraordinary bear.

“A poignant, necessary entry into the children’s literary canon, Root Magic brings to life the history and culture of Gullah people while highlighting the timeless plight of Black Americans. Add in a fun, magical adventure and you get everything I want in a book!” –Justina Ireland, New York Times bestselling author of Dread Nation

Walter Dean Myers Honor Award for Outstanding Children’s Literature! A Mythopoeic Fantasy Award winner!

Debut author Eden Royce arrives with a wondrous story of love, bravery, friendship, and family, filled to the brim with magic great and small.

It’s 1963, and things are changing for Jezebel Turner. Her beloved grandmother has just passed away. The local police deputy won’t stop harassing her family. With school integration arriving in South Carolina, Jez and her twin brother, Jay, are about to begin the school year with a bunch of new kids. But the biggest change comes when Jez and Jay turn eleven– and their uncle, Doc, tells them he’s going to train them in rootwork.

Jez and Jay have always been fascinated by the African American folk magic that has been the legacy of their family for generations–especially the curious potions and powders Doc and Gran would make for the people on their island. But Jez soon finds out that her family’s true power goes far beyond small charms and elixirs…and not a moment too soon. Because when evil both natural and supernatural comes to show itself in town, it’s going to take every bit of the magic she has inside her to see her through.

A novel in verse about a young deaf boy during World War II, the sister who loves him, and the conscientious objector who helps him. Inspired by true events.

Henry has been deaf from an early age–he is intelligent and aware of langauge, but by age six, he has decided it’s not safe to speak to strangers. When the time comes for him to start school, he is labeled “unteachable.” Becasue his family has very little money, his parents and older sister, Molly, feel powerless to help him. Henry is sent to Riverview, a bleak institution where he is misunderstood, underestimated, and harshly treated.

Victor, a conscientious objector to World War II, is part of a Civilian Public Service program offered as an alternative to the draft. In 1942, he arrives at Riverview to serve as an attendant and quickly sees that Henry is far from unteachable–he is brave, clever, and sometimes mischievous. In Victor’s care, Henry begins to see how things can change for the better.

Heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful, Helen Frost’s All He Knew is inspired by true events and provides sharp insight into a little-known element of history.

Something magical happens whenever Joe Stoshack holds a baseball card. His hand starts to tingle. And if the card is old enough-like the rare 1932 Babe Ruth card his father gives him for his 12th birthday-Joe can travel back in time! One of baseball’s greatest mysteries is whether or not the Babe actually called his fifth-inning home run in the third game of the 1932 World Series against the Cubs. With Joe’s time-travelling talent and his new card, he can solve that mystery once and for all. But when Joe and his father travel back to the heart of the Depression, they find more than the answer to a baseball mystery. They learn how important it is for a father and son to really know each other. Babe and Me is a magical mixture of baseball, history, and family adventure. Johnny Heller’s thrilling play-by-play narration takes listeners to the golden era of Babe and the Yankee greats.

From high up in the sky, the Moon has spent her whole life watching Earth and hoping for someone to visit. Dinosaurs roam, pyramids are built, and boats are made, but still, no one comes. Will friends ever come to visit her? One day a spaceship soars from Earth…and so does her heart. This bestselling story celebrates the extraordinary fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing!

2016 Audie Award Finalist for Middle Grade

Sharon M. Draper presents “storytelling at its finest” (School Library Journal, starred review) in this New York Times bestselling Depression-era novel about a young girl who must learn to be brave in the face of violent prejudice when the Ku Klux Klan reappears in her segregated southern town.

Stella lives in the segregated South–in Bumblebee, North Carolina, to be exact about it. Some stores she can go into. Some stores she can’t. Some folks are right pleasant. Others are a lot less so. To Stella, it sort of evens out, and heck, the Klan hasn’t bothered them for years. But one late night, later than she should ever be up, much less wandering around outside, Stella and her little brother see something they’re never supposed to see, something that is the first flicker of change to come, unwelcome change by any stretch of the imagination. As Stella’s community–her world–is upended, she decides to fight fire with fire. And she learns that ashes don’t necessarily signify an end.

Prolific young adult author Dan Gutman has hit home runs with many boys thanks to his spectacular baseball fan time-traveling tales-including Babe & Me and Honus & Me. Jim & Me finds Stosh and his nemesis Bobby Fuller joining forces to help one of their heroes. Native American baseball legend Jim Thorpe was an Olympic champion-but then lost his medals due to scandal. Now only Stosh and Bobby have the power to change history and give Jim the legacy he deserved.

Paulie Horvath is never going to be a good student like his brother, John, never going to follow his hardworking father into the plumbing trade, never going to ease his mother’s mind by passing tests or cleaning up his room. But once he hears jazz by accident from the basement of a speakeasy, he knows exactly what he will do: learn that music and make it his life. Jazz is all around in gangland Chicago, but not so easy for a twelve-year-old to find, especially when his father disapproves of it. Paulie has to lie, beg, and steal just to get time for lessons, time to practice, time to slip across town to see stars like King Oliver and Louis Armstrong.

Lies last only so long until they are found out, and a confrontation is coming. Will he choose home and family or sleazy dives with that wonderful music? To decide, Paulie has to face an even tougher question. What is jazz, after all?

Author James Lincoln Collier has played and studied jazz throughout his life. Here is a novel that shows us a great moment in the history of jazz, and points at issues that still trouble us today.

Ellen Klages’ debut novel, The Green Glass Sea, was lavished with praise, including the Scott O’Dell Award for historical fiction. This sequel continues the story of science enthusiast Dewey Kerrigan, now living with her friend Suze’s family in Alamogordo, New Mexico, after her father’s death. Against the backdrop of America’s quest for the moon, Dewey tries to find her place in the world.

Back before the stock market crash, Jack’s dad had been working steadily, and their family had had plenty of money. But now, in the middle of the 1930s Depression, there isn’t much work for a trombone player–just a gig down in New York City once in a while. So fourteen-year-old Jack is doing his best to help out. He’s lucky enough to get a weekend job at the town boat club where the “rich folks” hang out, but Jack wishes his dad would at least try to get a regular job. Sometimes there isn’t even enough money to buy decent food and clothes for Jack, his sister Sally, and their young brother Henry. It’s bad enough that their mother has had a nervous breakdown and gone to live in a “home.”

Now Jack and Sally are beginning to wonder how long the rest of the family will be able to stay together, with so little money coming in. Jack’s father keeps telling them to look on the bright side–his favorite song is “Happy Days Are Here Again.” But Jack isn’t sure there can be a bright side when you don’t have enough money to live decently. Then, at the boat club, Jack sees an opportunity to steal a lot of money–enough to pay the family’s back rent and keep them all together. For the first time in his life Jack is seriously tempted to steal–especially now that he realizes that his dad can’t really be depended upon, that it’s up to him to take care of the family.

Molly and Miri Gill are twins. They look the same, act the same, sometimes even think the same. But they weren’t always twins… Molly used to live in 1935, until Miri traveled back in time to save her from the clutches of Molly’s evil adoptive family. Only they know about the magic, and its power to set things right. So when home repairs unleash more unexpected magic from their very special… very magical old house, the girls set off on another time-traveling adventure to the Civil War where they race against the clock to save two unusual soldiers and come to terms with the truth about Molly’s real past.

Miri is the non-twin child in a family with two sets of them – older brothers and younger sisters. The family has just moved to an old farmhouse in a new town, where the only good thing seems to be Miri’s ten-sided attic bedroom. But when Miri gets sent to her room after accidentally bashing her big brother on the head with a shovel, she finds herself in the same room…only not quite. Without meaning to, she has found a way to travel back in time to 1935 where she discovers Molly, a girl her own age very much in need of a loving family.

It’s 1942: Tomi Itano, 12, is a second-generation Japanese American who lives in California with her family on their strawberry farm. Although her parents came from Japan and her grandparents still live there, Tomi considers herself an American. She doesn’t speak Japanese and has never been to Japan. But after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, things change. No Japs Allowed signs hang in store windows and Tomi’s family is ostracized. Things get much worse. Suspected as a spy, Tomi’s father is taken away. The rest of the Itano family is sent to an internment camp in Colorado. Many other Japanese American families face a similar fate. Tomi becomes bitter, wondering how her country could treat her and her family like the enemy. What does she need to do to prove she is an honorable American? Sandra Dallas shines a light on a dark period of American history in this story of a young Japanese American girl caught up in the prejudices and World War II.