Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Carrie's War (Puffin Modern Classics)

by Nina Bawden

Albert, Carrie and young Nick are war-time evacuees whose lives get so tangled up with the people they've come to live among that the war and their real families seem to belong to another world. Carrie and Nick are billeted in Wales with old Mr Evans, who is so mean and cold, and his timid mouse of a sister, Lou, who suddenly starts having secrets. Their friend Albert is luckier, living in Druid's Bottom with... (more)

Arthur, High King of Britain

by Michael Morpurgo

As the sea sweeps in, the boy is suddenly cut off in his attempt to walk round the Scilly Isles from Great Ganilly to St Martin's. Having given up hope of survival, he finds himself waking up beside a warm fire with the man, Arthur Pendragon, and his dog, Bercelet, who have rescued him. Arthur tells him the incredible story of his life while the seawater dries out of boy's clothes. His tale begins with his... (more)

Voyage on the Great "Titanic"; The Diary of Margaret Ann Brady, 1912 (My Story S.)

Voyage on the Great "Titanic"; The Diary of Margaret Ann Brady, 1912 (My Story S.)

by Ellen Emerson White

Read Margaret's account of the Titanic disaster.

The Final Journey

by Gudrun Pausewang

Alice is eleven years old, and it is wartime. She is on a train with no seats, no lights, no sanitary facilities. Her parents and her grandmother are missing, and Alice doesn't know where she is going. Maybe she will get to play outside again, maybe she will see her parents. But as the train rolls on, Alice begins to realize that just when you think things can't possibly get any worse, they do. "No reader will... (more)

Twist of Gold

by Michael Morpurgo

Sean and Annie have one chance to escape the potato famine in Ireland, and after surviving a shipwreck they land safely in America in search for their father. But their new land is one of hardship and they live in poverty on the streets of Boston. However, their adventure is just beginning. After living aboard a steamboat they then join pioneers traveling across the prairies. Their music and dancing bring joy to... (more)

The Thieves of Ostia (Roman Mystery #1)

by Caroline Lawrence

The dogs on Flavia's street have started dying mysteriously, and she is determined to find out why. Her investigation leads her to three extraordinary people: Jonathan, her new neighbor; Nubia, an African slave; and Lupus, a mute beggar boy. The four embark on a search for the killer&150and that's when the excitement begins

Battle of Britain (My Story)

by Chris Priestly

OCTOBER 1940 I was out, free of my aircraft, tumbling wildly in the air. I pulled the ripcord. I was jerked back by the parachute as air punched into it and I swung there like a puppet, winded and gasping for breath. I looked down at my leg. It felt like a bear was gnawing on it but it was still in one piece. For now, anyway. Then I heard it-right behind me. An Me 109 diving towards me, guns blazing. There was... (more)

Bread and Sugar (Daisy Chain War)

by Joan O'Neill

Picking up the threads of the compelling Daisy Chain War, this second volume tracks nine-year-old John, Lizzie Doyle's nephew, who has come to live in Ireland with his grandparents, but is longing for the father he has never met, and who has been missing in action for a decade. But life in the Doyles' lively Dublin house slowly brings John out of himself, especially when he befriends tough urchin Anthony Quinn and... (more)

Daisy Chain War

by Joan O'Neill

Book one in a compelling trilogy set in in the Irish "emergency" during the Second World War, in which young Lizzie Doyle comes to term with living with her fiesty English cousin Vicky, and the effects of the war on an impoverished Ireland in the 1940s.

Desert Danger (My Story S.)

by Jim Eldridge

Tim Jackson, North Africa WWII I was lifting one of our mines when there was an explosion from the team to our right. I only heard it because there had been a momentary lull in the barrage from the big guns. We all looked, and saw that the man lifting the mines had handled one incorrectly and it had exploded. Luckily the charge in the mine wasn't big enough to kill him, but I could see that his leg had been blown... (more)

Trenches (My Story)

by Jim Eldridge

JUNE 1917 Mustard gas! A feeling of panic hit me and I scrambled to get my respirator over my face before the killer gas got into my mouth and nose and burnt my lungs. It burned everything it touched. Eyes. Skin. And it always found a way in. Like now, I could feel where it had crept up inside the sleeves of my uniform and the skin on my arms felt like it was on fire. I threw myself into a muddy hole, pushing my... (more)

The Highwayman's Footsteps

by Nicola Morgan

"The novel gallops along at a cracking pace, packed full of plot twisters." — THE HERALD (UK) "I felt cold metal on the side of my skull before I heard the voice. I knew at once what it was. A pistol. Resting on the bone just behind my ear. The favorite place for murderers, robbers, highwaymen — because, by angling the pistol slightly inward, they could be sure to blow a man’s brains out before he might have... (more)

D-Day (My Story)

by Bryan Perrett

Jim Dodd is an 18-year-old Second Lieutenant in an infantry battalion, a former Territorial unit. He is younger than many of the men in his platoon, but earns their respect by handling the men well on exercise and looking after their welfare. At the beginning of 1944, his battalion is mobilised and a veteran of the desert war and former POW is sent in as commander. He drives the company mercilessly, flaying... (more)

The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips

by Michael Morpurgo

It's 1943, and twelve-year-old Lily Tregenza lives on a farm in an idyllic seaside village in England. Apart from her father being away and the "townie" evacuees at school, her life is scarcely touched by the war . . . until Lily and her family, along with 3,000 other villagers, are ordered to evacuate their homes to allow the Allied forces to practice their landings for D-day. It's a dangerous operation--guns... (more)

Once

by Morris Gleitzman

Kaspar

by MICHAEL MORPURGO

War Nurse (My Story)

by Sue Reid

This is the diary of Kitty, an 18-year-old VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment), during the years of 1939 and 1940. As a nurse working in the military hospitals in the south of England, Kitty sees at close hand the effects of war - notably the casualties of Dunkirk. The diary details the historical events and describes the day to day life of a young VAD in a military hospital in WWII. It's also a story about growing up.... (more)

God of Mischief

by Paul Bajoria

Sent to live with their nearest living relative, Sir Septimus Cloy, the eccentric widower of their late mother's cousin, Mog and Nick spend a lot of time on their own. They explore the Cloy mansion, with its towers and turrets, staircases leading nowhere, and forbidden rooms. Two elderly manservants, Melibee and Bonefinger, guard Cloy like malevolent ravens. Then sinister things begin to happen: a falling gargoyle... (more)

U-boat Hunter (My Story)

by Bryan Perrett

Sixteen-year-old Peter Rogers is training to be a Royal Navy officer in 1939 when he hears that his father's ship has been torpedoed off the coast of Ireland. The survivors, including his father, have been captured by a German U-boat crew and treated cruelly - some of them are shot dead. In 1940 Peter joins an escort fleet in the North Atlantic where British convoys are suffering horrific losses from enemy... (more)

White Heat (Perfect Fire Trilogy)

by K.M. Grant

Will Raimon's and Yolanda's love survive the ravages of a siege, her enforced betrothal to Raimon's enemy, and the growing divisions within their beloved Occitan? Raimon has escaped the pyre and carried the Blue Flame, the true spirit of the Occitan, to the mountains above Castelneuf. There he dreams of Yolanda and gathers more people to his cause. But his resolve begins to fail as he is besieged by the Catholic... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: historical stories

by Nina Bawden

by Michael Morpurgo

by Ellen Emerson White

by Gudrun Pausewang

by Michael Morpurgo

by Caroline Lawrence

by Chris Priestly

by Joan O'Neill

by Joan O'Neill

by Jim Eldridge

by Jim Eldridge

by Nicola Morgan

by Bryan Perrett

by Michael Morpurgo

by Morris Gleitzman

by MICHAEL MORPURGO

by Sue Reid

by Paul Bajoria

by Bryan Perrett

by K.M. Grant