‘Code Talker,’ by Joseph Bruchac

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One of the most fascinating stories of World War II is the role played by Navajos, who were recruited by the Marines to use their native tongue — one of the most complex of all American Indian languages — to create a code the Japanese could not break. The protagonist of this action-packed novel, Ned Begay, tells his grandchildren about his wartime experiences as part of the top-secret Navajo code talkers — years of training and combat in locations including Guam, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The result is an eye-opening new view of the war, and of the position of Native peoples in U.S. society.

‘Fatal Throne: The Wives of Henry VIII Tell All,’ by M.T. Anderson, Jennifer Donnelly, Candace Fleming, Stephanie Hemphill, Deborah Hopkinson, Linda Sue Park and Lisa Ann Sandell

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This book might seem like a gimmick, but even if it is, it’s a terrific one: Seven Y.A. authors join forces to tell the thrilling, bloody tale of King Henry VIII and his six wives. Anderson, the lone male of the writers, tells Henry’s side, while the women’s voices — from Fleming’s Katharine of Aragon to Hopkinson’s Kateryn Parr, Wife No. 6 — paint a suspenseful picture of doomed romance and courtly intrigue. The overall effect is something greater even than its riveting parts, shedding light on the plight of women in a patriarchal society and the ways they found their voices.

‘Butterfly Yellow’ by Thanha Lai

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This gorgeous novel from the award-winning Vietnamese-American author Lai is set in the 1970s and 1980s, a period that fascinates teenagers. It’s tantalizingly close, but everything is different. In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, a girl named Hang arrives in Texas as a refugee. When she was 12 and living in Saigon, she mistakenly allowed her younger brother, Linh, to be taken away without her by Americans airlifting children to safety. Now Hang is 18 and, with the help of a wannabe cowboy, finds her brother and tries to reunite with him. But Linh is American now, renamed David, and barely remembers her. The period details — and the emotion — are done to heartbreaking perfection.

‘The Fountains of Silence’ by Ruta Sepetys

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Sepetys is an absolute master of suspenseful historical fiction that plunges you into dangerous political moments, showing the life-or-death stakes for characters who seem achingly real. The novel is set in 1957 in Franco’s repressive Spain, where women are silenced and Republican sympathizers are rounded up regularly. Ana, the young heroine, meets a boy from Texas who is spending a month in Spain. As their relationship deepens, she finds herself dreaming of a better, freer life, and risks her future to work with him in the underground resistance.