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Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a 10 year-old girl, is arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.

In the summer of 1849, Lucy Whipple's mother packs up her household and her two young children, and leaves their home in Massachusetts for the gold fields of California.

No woman in all of our history has captured the imagination like the young Shoshone girl Sacagawea, who served as in interpreter and often as a guide for Lewis and Clark on their famous expedition into our uncharted West.

Spanish seminarian Julián Escobar, known to the Mayas as Lord Kukulcán and worshipped as a god, witnesses the fall of the Mayan and Incan civilizations with the coming of Cortés and Pizarro.

Jim Lynne is idly playing darts in Liverpool when his brother, Ted, calls him over to a table to ask a question about the ship that he's working on. It seems the ship, enigmatically named the 290, is not the cargo ship that people are saying it is. Whatever its purpose, it is certainly built for speed. But Jim thinks he knows that purpose: it is being built for the Confederate navy.

Esperanza Ortega possesses all the treasures a young girl could want: fancy dresses; a beautiful home filled with servants in the bountiful region of Aguascalientes, Mexico; and the promise of one day rising to Mama's position and presiding over all of El Rancho de las Rosas.

When 16-year-old Helmuth Hubner listens to the BBC news on an illegal short-wave radio, he quickly discovers Germany is lying to the people. But when he tries to expose the truth with leaflets, he's tried for treason.

This young adult novel, which successfully captures the pain of the Revolutionary War, is a fine example of historical fiction. The American Revolution was a war that divided families (English loyalists versus eager Patriots) and one of the families being torn apart is the Meeker family.