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Salem High School Website
Historical Fiction - North America: Post War / Cold War (1946 - 1991)
After her father's death, Ruth Robb and her family transplant themselves in the summer of 1958 from New York City to Atlanta--the land of debutantes, sweet tea, and the Ku Klux Klan. In her new hometown, Ruth quickly figures out she can be Jewish or she can be popular, but she can't be both. Eager to fit in with the blond girls in the "pastel posse," Ruth decides to hide her religion. Before she knows it, she is falling for the handsome and charming Davis and sipping Cokes with him and his friends at the all-white, all-Christian Club.
The Stones of Mourning Creek by Diane Les Becquets
Call Number: FIC LES
ISBN: 0761452389
Publication Date: 2005-09-01
In Alabama in the 1960s, fourteen-year-old Francie develops a controversial and dangerous friendship with a colored girl her own age.
The Bridges at Toko-Ri by James A. Michener
Call Number: FIC MIC
ISBN: 0394417801
Publication Date: 1953-07-12
The men of a naval task force operating in the icy waters off the Korean shore work together to destroy the heavily guarded bridge at Toko-ri and stop essential supplies from moving to the Communist front lines.
Hope Mills by Constance Pierce
Call Number: FIC MIL
ISBN: 0916366820
Publication Date: 1997-05-17
Tollie Ramsey, a fifteen-year-old girl, describes life in Hope Mills--an oppressive mill town during the year 1959, and dreams of leaving it for a better life.
Memories of Summer by Ruth White
Call Number: FIC WHI
ISBN: 0374349452
Publication Date: 2000-08-29
In 1955, thirteen-year-old Lyric finds her whole life changing when her family moves from the hills of Virginia to a town in Michigan and her older sister Summer begins descending into mental illness.
Books
Absalom's Daughters by Suzanne FeldmanA spellbinding debut about half sisters, one black and one white, on a 1950s road trip through the American South Self-educated and brown-skinned, Cassie works full time in her grandmother’s laundry in rural Mississippi. Illiterate and white, Judith falls for “colored music” and dreams of life as a big city radio star. These teenaged girls are half-sisters. And when they catch wind of their wayward father’s inheritance coming down in Virginia, they hitch their hopes to a road trip together to claim what’s rightly theirs. In an old junk car, with a frying pan, a ham, and a few dollars hidden in a shoe, they set off through the American Deep South of the 1950s, a bewitchingly beautiful landscape as well as one bedeviled by racial strife and violence. Suzanne Feldman's Absalom’s Daughters combines the buddy movie, the coming-of-age tale, and a dash of magical realism to enthrall and move us with an unforgettable, illuminating novel.
ISBN: 9781627794534
Publication Date: 2016-07-05
A Lesson before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines
Call Number: FIC GAI
ISBN: 0375702709
Publication Date: 1997-09-28
The story of two young African American men, one condemned to death for a murder and the other a teacher, who form a bond in a small Cajun Louisiana community in the late 1940s.
Ghost Boy by Iain Lawrence
Call Number: FIC LAW
ISBN: 044041668X
Publication Date: 2002-03-12
Unhappy in a home seemingly devoid of love, a fourteen-year-old albino boy who thinks of himself as Harold the Ghost runs away to join the circus, where he works with the elephants and searches for a sense of who he is.
The Bomb by Theodore Taylor
Call Number: FIC TAY
ISBN: 0152061657
Publication Date: 2007-08-01
In 1944, when the Americans liberate Bikini Atoll from the Japanese, fourteen-year-old Sorry Rinamu does not realize that in two years he will lead a desperate effort to save his island home from a much more deadly threat.
1950's
Muckers by Sandra Neil Wallace
Call Number: FIC WAL
ISBN: 9780375867545
Publication Date: 2013-10-08
"Felix O'Sullivan, standing in the shadow of his dead brother, an angry, distant father, and racial tension, must lead the last-ever Muckers high school football team to the state championship before a mine closing shuts down his entire town"--
The Homecoming of Samuel Lake by Jenny Wingfield
Call Number: FIC WIN
ISBN: 9780385344081
Publication Date: 2011-07-12
Swan Lake, a spirited, outspoken, and fearless eleven year old, helps her parents overcome the untimely death of her mother's father and the lost of her dad's congregation, as she makes it a point to protect an eight-year-old neighbor from his terrifying dad.
Mississippi Trial 1955 by Chris Crowe; Tim Okamura (Illustrator)
Call Number: FIC CRO
ISBN: 0803727453
Publication Date: 2002-05-27
In Mississippi in 1955, a sixteen-year-old finds himself at odds with his grandfather over issues surrounding the kidnapping and murder of a fourteen-year-old African-American from Chicago.
New Boy by Julian Houston
Call Number: FIC HOU
ISBN: 061888405X
Publication Date: 2008-01-14
As a new sophomore at an exclusive boarding school in the 1950s, Rob Garrett, a young black man, is witness to the persecution of other students and wonders about the growing civil rights movement back home in Virginia.
The Floating World by Cynthia Kadohata
Call Number: FIC KAD
ISBN: 0670826804
Publication Date: 1989-07-12
A twelve-year-old Japanese-American describes her life with her family on road in the 1950s.