Cleopatra VII: Daughter of the Nile - 57 B.C.


Kristiana Gregory - 1999
    While her father is in hiding after attempts on his life, twelve-year-old Cleopatra records in her diary how she fears for her own safety and hopes to survive to become Queen of Egypt some day.

The Star of Kazan


Eva Ibbotson - 1999
    Instead she celebrates her Found Day, the day a housemaid and a cook to three eccentric Viennese professors found her and took her home. There, Annika has made a happy life in the servants' quarters, surrounded with friends, including the elderly woman next door who regales Annika with stories of her performing days and her countless admirers - especially the Russian count who gave her the legendary emerald, the Star of Kazan. And yet, Annika still dreams of finding her true mother. But when a glamorous stranger arrives claiming to be Annika's mother, and whisks her away to a crumbling, spooky castle, Annika discovers that all is not as it seems in her newfound home...

The Journal of Scott Pendleton Collins: A World War II Soldier, Normandy, France, 1944


Walter Dean Myers - 1999
    In desperation, he records his thoughts, fears, and hopes in a journal he has carried since his first days as a soldier in Basic Training at Fort Dix.

West to a Land of Plenty: The Diary of Teresa Angelino Viscardi


Jim Murphy - 1998
    The first humorous book in the Dear America series follows an Italian girl's immigrant family as they move from New York City to a utopian community in the frontier West.While traveling in 1883 with her Italian American family (including a meddlesome little sister) and other immigrant pioneers to a utopian community in Idaho, fourteen-year-old Teresa keeps a diary of her experiences along the way.

A Line in the Sand: The Alamo Diary of Lucinda Lawrence


Sherry Garland - 1998
    In the journal she receives for her twelfth birthday in 1835, Lucinda Lawrence describes the hardships her family and other residents of the "Texas colonies" endure when they decide to face the Mexicans in a fight for their freedom.

Banished from Our Home: The Acadian Diary of Angélique Richard


Sharon Stewart - 2004
    Will she ever see her home again?

Down the Rabbit Hole, Chicago, Illinois, 1871: The Diary of Pringle Rose


Susan Campbell Bartoletti - 2013
    After her uncle Edward and his awful wife, Adeline, move into the Pringle family's home--making life for her and her younger brother, Gideon, unbearable--Pringle runs away with Gideon to Chicago, seeking refuge from the tragedy, and hoping to start a new life. She becomes a nanny for the children of a labor activist, and quickly finds herself caught up in a web of intrigue and lies. Then, when a familiar figure from home arrives, Pringle begins to piece together the devastating mystery of what happened to her parents, and realizes just how deadly the truth might be. But soon, one of the greatest disasters this country has ever known--the Great Fire of Chicago--flares up, and Pringle is on the run for her life.

Prisoners in the Promised Land: The Ukrainian Internment Diary of Anya Soloniuk


Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch - 2007
    But soon after they arrive in the land they hoped would welcome them, World War I is declared, and Ukrainians are considered “enemy aliens” — many of them sent away to internment camps. Anya must find a way to deal with the challenges in the land she now calls home.

My Secret War: The World War II Diary of Madeline Beck, Long Island, New York 1941


Mary Pope Osborne - 2000
    After discovering that a German U-boat has landed near her home--a little-known, true incident on Long Island--she and her classmates form "Kids Fight for Freedom" and participate in the home front war effort.

Survival in the Storm: The Dust Bowl Diary of Grace Edwards


Katelan Janke - 2002
    Fierce, dust-filled winds ravage the plains and threaten the town's agricultural livelihood, creating poverty and despair among Grace's neighbors. Will her family's farm survive?

The Girl Who Chased Away Sorrow: The Diary of Sarah Nita, a Navajo Girl


Ann Turner - 1999
    Army in 1864 New Mexico.

The Journal of Sean Sullivan: A Transcontinental Railroad Worker, Nebraska and Points West, 1867


William Durbin - 1999
    The author of the award-winning The Broken Blade tells the story of a fifteen-year-old who goes to Nebraska to work on the Transcontinental Railroad with his father.

An Ocean Apart: The Gold Mountain Diary of Chin Mei-Ling


Gillian Chan - 2004
    Mei-ling works after school, and her father holds down several jobs, in a frantic effort to come up with the head tax that will allow her mother and brother to come to Canada. They must have that money before the Exclusion Act bars any more Chinese from immigrating. Mei-ling cannot stop thinking about what will happen if they are unable to come up with the money to reunite their family?

Dragon Keeper


Carole Wilkinson - 2003
    A nameless orphan with no past and an uncertain future becomes his unlikely ally. The young orphan soon discovers that it is her destiny to protect the aging dragon and his mysterious purple stone. Chased by an evil dragon hunter and a powerful sorcerer, their adventure is not easy. Each must learn to help and understand the other if they are to survive. To succeed in her task, the young orphan must reach deep within herself to find courage she never knew existed. No longer can she be the timid, shy orphan she once was. She is now the one, true Dragon Keeper.

Weetamoo: Heart of the Pocassets, Massachusetts - Rhode Island, 1653


Patricia Clark Smith - 2001
    The pilgrims -- called Coat-men by the Wampanoag -- have settled here in the natives' territory at Patuxit, a place that the Pilgrims have renamed Plymouth. Weetamoo's father, Corbitant, is sachem, or chief, of the Pocassets. He is mistrustful of the colonists and imparts his beliefs about them to his daughter, who is next in line to become chief. Weetamoo must learn the fundamental values and disciplines of a true Pocasset chief.