KEY: jP = Picture Books; jZ = 1st and 2nd Grade Readers; jE = 3rd and 4th Grade Readers; J = 5th Grade and Up

1600's

updated 2/07


Picture Books

Howard, Ginger WILLIAM'S HOUSE
Arriving in New England in 1637, William is determined to recreate his home in England but realizes that climate requires modifications to it.
2001 unpaged

Kay, Verla TATTERED SAILS
Illustrations and simple rhyming text depict the journey of a family from London to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635
2001 unpaged


Beginning-to-Read Books


Avi FINDING PROVIDENCE
The Story of Roger Williams

1625. After being forced to leave the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Roger Williams travels south and, with the help of the Narragansett Indians, founds Providence, Rhode Island.
1997 unpaged

3rd - 4th Grade

Hermes, Patricia OUR STRANGE NEW LAND
Elizabeth's Jamestown Colony diary, book 1 1609
My America
A Dear America Book
Nine-year-old Elizabeth keeps a journal of her experiences in the New World as she encounters Indians, suffers hunger and the death of friends, and helps her father build their first home.
2000 109 p.

Hermes, Patricia SEASON OF PROMISE
Elizabeth's Jamestown Colony diary, book 3 1609

My America
A Dear America Book
In 1611, ten-year-old Elizabeth continues a journal of her experiences living in Jamestown, as her brother Caleb rejoins the family, a new strict governor comes to the colony, and her father considers remarriage.
2002 108 p.

Hermes, Patricia THE STARVING TIME
Elizabeth's Jamestown Colony diary, book 2 1609

My America
A Dear America Book
9-year-old Elizabeth keeps a journal of her experiences in the New World as she encounters Indians, suffers hunger and the death of friends, and helps her father build their first home.
2001 102 p.

Karwoski, Gail MIRACLE
The True Story Of The Wreck Of The Sea Venture

In 1609, a fleet of nine ships left England bound for the Jamestown Colony. Days before landfall, the fleet was hit by a hurricane. The flagship, Sea Venture, ran aground on the reefs on Bermuda's northern coast, no one was lost.
2005 64 p.

Lobel, Arnold ON THE DAY PETER STUYVESANT SAILED INTO TOWN
Summary Finding the appearance of New Amsterdam a total disgrace, Peter Stuyvesant begins issuing no-nonsense proclamations to rectify the situation.
1987 39 p.

Peacock, Carol PILGRIM CAT
1620. A young pilgrim girl and the cat she discovers on the Mayflower voyage begin their life together in the Plymouth settlement.
2004 unpaged


5th Grade and Up

Bulla, Clyde Robert A LION TO GUARD US
Left on their own in London, three iimpoverished children draw upon all their resources to stay together and make their way to the virginia colony in search of their father. June 2, 1609 sailed from Plymouth, England. In May, 1610, they sailed on to Virginia after being shipwrecked off an island in the Bermudas. They found Jamestown almost deserted. After the winter of 1609-10, known as the Starving Time, only a few settlers were left. More ships came from England and Jamestown was saved.
1980 115 p.

Carbone, Elisa BLOOD ON THE RIVER
James Town 1607
Traveling to the New World in 1606 as the page to Captain John Smith, 12-year-old orphan Samuel Collier settles in the new colony of James Town, where he must quickly learn to distinguish between friend and foe.
2006 237 p.

Clapp, Patricia CONSTANCE: A STORY OF EARLY PLYMOUTH
14-year-old Constance Hopkins keeps a journal of her life beginning with her family's arrival on the Mayflower in 1620. Plymouth deals with winters which kill half of the settlers to Constance's marriage at 20.
1968 255 p.

Clapp, Patricia WITCHES' CHILDREN; A STORY OF SALEM
During the winter of 1692, when the young girls of Salem suddenly find themselves subject to fits of screaming and strange visions, some believe that they have seen the devil and are the victims of witches.
1982 160 p.

Cross, Gilbert WITCH ACROSS TIME
Spending the summer with her great-aunt on Martha's Vineyard while recovering from a period of emotional imbalance, fifteen-year-old Hannah encounters the ghost of a young woman, who was falsely executed as a witch in 1692 and seeks to clear her name.
1990 216 p.

Dorris, Michael GUESTS
Moss and Trouble, an Algonquin boy and girl, struggle with the problems of growing up in the Massachusetts area during the time of the first Thanksgiving, 1621.
1994 119 p.

Duble, Kathleen THE SACRIFICE
Two sisters, aged ten and twelve, are accused of witchcraft in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1692 and await trial in a miserable prison while their mother desperately searches for some way to obtain their freedom.
2005 203 p.

Fleischman, Paul SATURNALIA
In 1681 in Boston, 14-year-old William, a Narraganset Indian captured in a raid six years earlier, leads a productive and contented life as a printer's apprentice but is increasingly anxious to make some connection with his Indian past.
1990 109 p.

Forrester, Sandra WHEEL OF THE MOON
In England in 1627, newly orphaned Pen Downing leaves her country village for London, where she is abducted and sent to Virginia to work as an indentured servant.
2000 167 p.

Fraustino, Lisa I WALK IN DREAD: THE DIARY OF DELIVERANCE TREMBLEY, WITNESS TO THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY, 1691
This is the moving and compelling story of a young girl ensnared in the tumult and terror of the Salem Witch Trials. Deliverance Trembley lives in Salem Village, where she must take care of her sickly sister, Mem.
2004 203 p.

Harrah, Madge MY BROTHER, MY ENEMY
Determined to avenge the massacre of his family, fourteen-year-old Robert Bradford joins Nathaniel Bacon's rebel army in hopes of wiping out the Susquehannock Indians of Virginia. 1676.
1997 137 p.

Hildick, E.W. THE CASE OF THE WEEPING WITCH
While working on a school project, the members of the McGurk Organization travel back to 1692 and find themselves involved in charges of witchcraft.
1992 158 p.

Hildick, E.W. HESTER BIDGOOD, INVESTIGATRIX OF EVILL DEEDES
Thirteen-year-old Hester Bidgood and her fourteen-year-old friend Rob Macgregor investigate the stoning and branding of a kitten in a New England town caught in the grip of witchcraft rumors during the year 1692.
1994 141 p.

Karwoski, Gail SURVIVING JAMESTOWN: THE ADVENTURES OF YOUNG SAM COLLIER
Sam Collier, a twelve-year-old, serves as page to John Smith during the relentless hardship experienced by the founders at the first permanent English settlement in the New World.
2001 198 p.

Kirkpatrick, Katherine ESCAPE ACROSS THE WIDE SEA
After escaping religious persecution in France in 1686, a young Huguenot boy and his parents travel on a slave ship to West Africa, then to the Caribbean, and finally to New York, where they help found the town of New Rochelle.
2004 210 p.

Koller, Jackie French THE PRIMROSE WAY
A recent arrival to the New World in 1633, Rebekah, a missionary's daughter, befriends a Native American woman and begins to question whether the "savages" need saving after all.
1995 334 p.

Kudlinski, Kathleen MY LADY POCAHONTAS
1607. Nuttagwon, daughter of a minor Pamunkey chief, is still a girl when Pocahontas's vision of peace between their people and the newly-arrived English colonists bonds the two in a lifelong friendship as they work together to make the vision a reality.
2006 258 p.

Lasky, Kathryn BEYOND THE BURNING TIME
When, in the winter of 1691, accusations of witchcraft surface in her small New England village, twelve-year-old Mary Chase fights to save her mother from execution.
1994 272 p.

Lasky, Kathryn A JOURNEY TO THE NEW WORLD
THE DIARY OF REMEMBER PATIENCE WHIPPLE, MAYFLOWER 1620

Twelve-year-old Mem presents a diary account of the trip she and her family made on the Mayflower in 1620 and their first year in the New World.
1996 173 p.

Lenski, Lois PURITAN ADVENTURE
The children in the ten-year-old New England colony of Massachusetts Bay have been raised as Puritans strictly to work and not to play. Aunt Charity, newly arrived from England, brings fun into their lives and reminds the adults that children should have some enjoyment in their spartan lives.
1944 223 p.

Lough, Loree DREAM SEEKERS
ROGER WILLIAMS'S STAND FOR FREEDOM
The American Adventure series
When twelve-year-old Philip and his sister move with their parents from Plymouth to Boston in 1634, they encounter mysterious Indians and survive narros escapes.
1998 136 p.

McDonald, Megan SHADOWS IN THE GLASSHOUSE
American Girls History Mysteries
While working as an indentured servant for a Jamestown glassmaker in 1621, 12-year-old Merry uncovers a case of sabotage.
2000 123 p.

O'Dell, Scott THE SERPENT NEVER SLEEPS

Eighteen-year-old Agnes, a Mohawk Indian who is descended from a line of shamanic healers, uses her own newly-discovered powers to uncover the story of her ancestor, a seventeenth-century New England English healer who fled charges of witchcraft to make her life with the local Indians.
2002 342 p.

Petry, Ann TITUBA OF SALEM VILLAGE
Tituba, the minister's slave, gazed into the stone watering trough. She did not see her own reflection. Instead, she saw a vision of herself, surrounded by angry people. The people were staring ater. Their faces showed fear. That was several years ago. It is now 1692, and there is strange talk in Salem Village. Talk of witches. Several girls have been taken with fits, and there is only one explanation: Someone in the village has been doing the devil's work. All eyes are on Tituba, the one person who can tell fortunes with cards, and who can spin a thread so fine it must be magic. Did Tituba see the future that day at the watering trough? If so, Could she actually be hanged for practicing witchcraft?
1964 254 p.

Rees, Celia WITCH CHILD

In 1659, 14-year-old Mary Newbury keeps a journal of her voyage from England to the New World and her experiences living as a witch in a community of Puritans near Salem, Massachusetts.
2000 261 p.

Rinaldi, Ann A BREAK WITH CHARITY
While waiting for a church meeting in 1706, Susanna English, daughter of a wealthy Salem merchant, recalls the malice, fear, and accusations of witchcraft that tore her village apart in 1692.
1992 299 p.

Rinaldi, Ann THE JOURNAL OF JASPER JONATHAN PIERCE
A Dear America Book
MY NAME IS AMERICA series
A 14-year-old indentured servant keeps a journal of his experiences on the Mayflower and during the building of Plymouth in 1620 and 1621.
2000 131 p.

Smith, Claude THE STRATFORD DEVIL
Stratford, Connecticut, 1651. The Puritan strong hold of Stratford is ravaged by wolves, bad weather, a fire and brimstone preacher. When a bounty is put on wolf pelts, a stranger named Purvis comes to live with Ruth and her mother. By curious events Ruth learns that Purvis is her birth father, she survives a wolf attack with the Indian Nimrod's help, and is eventually accused of witchcraft after her husband dies within hours of their marriage.
1984 192 p.

Spear, Elizabeth George THE WITCH OF BLACKBIRD POND
April 1687 Wethersfield in Connecticut colony. Kit Tyler finds Puritan life in Connecticut Colony radically different from life in Barbados. Difficulty in conforming eventually causes her to be tried as a witch, but a handsome seaman comes to her rescue.
1958 249 p.

Torrye, Michele VOYAGE OF PLUNDER
Fourteen-year-old Daniel's life is turned upside down when his father's merchant ship is plundered by pirates in 1696 and Daniel is forced to stay aboard the pirate ship as a hostage.
2005 182 p.

Wisler, G. Clifton THIS NEW LAND
Ten-year-old Richard Woodley describes his trip to the New World aboard the Mayflower and tells about the first year spent by the Pilgrims of Plymouth.
1987 124 p.