Carter, Graydon and David Friend (Eds.). Bohemians, Bootleggers, Flappers and Swells: The Best of Early Vanity Fair. 2014.
Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter introduces these fabulous pieces written between 1913 and 1936, when the magazine published a murderers’ row of the world’s leading literary lights. Bohemians, Bootleggers, Flappers and Swells features great writers on great topics, including F. Scott Fitzgerald on what a magazine should be, Clarence Darrow on equality, D.H. Lawrence on women, e.e. cummings on Calvin Coolidge, John Maynard Keynes on the collapse in money value, Dorothy Parker on a host of topics ranging from why she hates actresses to why she hasn’t married … and more!
Cataneo, D.M. Eggplant Alley. 2013.
Living in the Bronx in 1970, thirteen-year-old Nicky must cope with personal and societal upheavals.
Carvell, Marlene. Who Will Tell My Brother? 2004.
During his lonely crusade to remove offensive mascots from his high school, a Native American teenager learns more about his heritage, his ancestors, and his place in the world.
Capo, Fran. It Happened in New York City: Remarkable Events that Shaped History. 2010.
This book contains accounts of notable people and events in the history of New York City, including Jenny Lind’s first concerts in 1850, the 1906 trial of Harry Thaw for the murder of architect Stanford White (called the Trial of the Century!), and the demolition of the Pennsylvania Station in 1963.
Castle, Jennifer. You Look Different in Real Life. 2013.
Five kids in upstate New York have been the subject of documentaries recording their lives every five years. Now as teens, they spend a weekend together to try and figure out their lives.
Chance, Megan. An Inconvenient Wife. 2005.
In this gripping account of historical fiction, the author exposes the horrors women faced during the late 19th century in New York when they dared to show passion of any kind or repudiate society’s norms. Lucy Carleton suffers from a common female disorder, “hysteria”: its symptoms are headaches, excitable reactions and feelings of claustrophobia. Her cold-hearted husband, William, determined to find her a cure, brings her to several specialists, who recommend everything from an ovariotomy to several months of confinement in a private asylum.
Chartrand, Rene. Ticonderoga 1758: Montcalms’ Victory Against All Odds. 2000.
In July 1758, the British launched an expedition against the French Fort of Carillon (Ticonderoga). Lord Howe, a popular British leader, was killed before the main battle began; the Black Watch regiments were decimated; the British retreated in near panic and the fort remained in the hands of the French.
Cloonan, Becky. East Coast Rising. Volume 1. 2006.
After a pirate attack leaves him drifting at sea, young Archer joins the notorious Cannonball Joe on the East Coast’s fastest ship and finds himself facing off against the feared pirate Captain Lee and other dangers from the deep.
Cofer, Judith Ortiz. Call Me María. 2004.
Fifteen-year-old María leaves her mother and Puerto Rico to live in New York City with her father. There, though, she feels torn between two cultures. Can she learn to embrace life in the barrio?
Cohn, Rachel and David Levithan. Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares. 2010.
Lily has left a red notebook full of challenges on a New York City bookstore shelf. Dash finds it and the two begin a correspondence through the book, sharing dares and dreams. Will they ever connect in person?
Cook, Kevin. Kitty Genovese: the murder, the bystanders, the crime that changed America. 2014.
Kevin Cook examines the truths and myths surrounding the life and death of Kitty Genovese, a native Brooklynite who was murdered in Kew Gardens in 1964.
Cooney, Caroline B. Code Orange. 2005.
While conducting research for a school paper on smallpox, Mitty finds an envelope containing 100-year-old smallpox scabs. Has he infected himself and all of New York City?
Cooper, James Fenimore. The Last of the Mohicans.
This exciting adventure story is set during the Seven Year’s War fought between France and England in North America. Hawkeye and his American Indian companions become involved in the bloody war.
Cooper, James Fenimore. The Spy.
Written in 1821, this historical novel is Cooper’s paean to the Revolutionary War. Protagonist Harry Birch finds himself wrongly accused of selling vital information to the British.
Crane, Stephen. Maggie, a Girl of the Streets, and Other Tales of New York.
This is a compilation of thirteen stories set in New York in the late 1800s, including the story of Maggie, a girl of the tenements, whose life turns downward when she becomes involved with a boy named Pete.
Cremer, Andrea R. The Inventor’s Secret. 2014.
In an alternate nineteenth-century America that is still a colony of Britain’s industrial empire, Charlotte and her fellow refugees’ struggle to survive is interrupted by a newcomer with no memory, bearing secrets about a terrible future.
Cremer, Andrea. Invisibility. 2013.
To break his curse of invisibility, a New York City boy is helped by a girl, newly arrived from the Midwest, who is the only one who can see him.
Dabel, Jane I. A Respectable Woman: The Public Roles of African American Women in 19th-Century New York. 2008.
In the nineteenth-century, New York’s free blacks were extremely politically active, lobbying for equal rights at home and an end to southern slavery. As their activism increased, so did discrimination against them. However, the struggle for civil rights did not extend to equal gender roles, and black male leaders encouraged women to remain in the domestic sphere, serving as caretakers, moral educators, and nurses to their families and community.
Davies, Jacqueline. Lost. 2009.
In 1911 New York City, sixteen-year-old Essie Rosenfeld must stop taking care of her irrepressible six-year-old sister when she goes to work at the Triangle Shirt Waist Company, where she befriends a missing heiress who is in hiding from her family and who seems to understand the feelings of heartache and grief that Essie is trying desperately to escape.
Demas, Corinne. Everything I Was. 2011.
When Irene’s father is “downsized,” her family must move from New York City’s Upper West Side to upstate New York. But what Irene is sure will be the most disastrous summer in her life becomes the start of a wonderful new life.
Donnelly, Jennifer. A Northern Light. 2004.
In 1906, sixteen-year-old Mattie, determined to attend college and be a writer against the wishes of her father and fiancé, takes a job at a summer inn where she discovers the truth about the death of a guest. This novel is based on a true story.
2004 YALSA Best Books for Young Adults
Dorfman, Ariel and Joaquín. Burning City. 2005.
Sixteen-year-old Heller Highland, who is living with his grandparents while his parents are away, burns rubber across Manhattan delivering bad news by bicycle, and as a summer heat wave melts the city, he is struck by first love.
Duble, Kathleen Benner. Quest. 2008.
Relates the events of explorer Henry Hudson’s final voyage from four points of view: that of his seventeen-year-old son aboard the ship, a younger son left in London, a crew member, and a young English woman acting as a spy in Holland.
Edmonds, Walter. Drums Along the Mohawk. 1997.
This is the story of the forgotten pioneers of the Mohawk Valley during the Revolutionary War. Combating hardships almost too great to endure, they helped give America a legend which still stirs the heart. In the midst of love and hate, life and death, danger and disaster, they stuck to the acres which were theirs, and fought a war without ever quite understanding it. An American classic since its original publication in 1936.