Patricia Hermes, an author whose books for children and young adults often dealt with serious subjects, including, death, incest, war, famine and slavery, died on July 11 at her home in Phoenix. She was 82.

Her daughter, Jennifer Hermes Natsu, confirmed the death.

Ms. Hermes was the author of some 50 books during her four-decade writing career. Among them were contributions to the “My Side of the Story” series, which recounts historic events from two points of view. They include “Salem Witch” (2006), written from the viewpoints of two children living through the 17th-century Massachusetts witch trials, and “The Brothers’ War” (2005), about Virginia cousins on opposite sides of the Civil War.

From 2000 to 2003, she wrote six books in the “My America” series, including “Our Strange New Land” and “The Starving Time,” both subtitled “Elizabeth’s Jamestown Colony Diary.” Her narrators were most often girls or young women, but not always. “Freedom’s Wings: Corey’s Underground Railroad Diary” (2001), for instance, was narrated by a young black man.

One of her favorite series, she once said, were the seven Emma Dilemma books, about a trouble-prone girl with four siblings and numerous pets. Reviewing “Emma Dilemma and the Soccer Nanny” in 2008, Booklist noted the title character’s “desire to be best at something” and the book’s “messages about the importance of honesty and communication as well as the challenges and unexpected rewards of compromise.”