I’ve been busy compiling a list of books (chapter books, not picture books) that help capture the history, culture, or atmosphere of places around the world. These books range from very simple chapter books to books more appropriate for the young adult level. Fiction and non-fiction titles are represented, as well as a variety of historical eras.I still have a list of books to research and add, so I’ll let you know if I update this list.Do you have favorites not on this list? Please leave recommendations in the comments! Do you have any cautions for books on this list? (I have not read them all.) Please let us know in the comments, as well.
North America:
Canada:
Owls in the Family (Farley Mowat), 1930
Alaska:
The Year of Miss Agnes (Kirkpatrick Hill), remote fishing village
Water Sky (Jean Craighead George)
Utah:
The Great Brain (John D. Fitzgerald), Catholic boys growing up in a Mormon community, 1890s
Montana/North Dakota:
Naya Nuki: Shoshoni Girl Who Ran (Kenneth Thomasma), Native American girl in 1800
Missouri:
The Great Turkey Walk (Kathleen Karr), Missouri to Colorado humorous Wild West, 1860
New York:
All of a Kind Family (Sydney Taylor), Jewish family in New York City, 1900
The Pushcart War (Jean Merrill), humor, 1960s
California:
Dragon’s Gate (Laurence Yep), Chinese railroad workers, 1860s
Bandit’s Moon (Sid Fleischman), gold rush
Esperanza Rising (Pam Munoz Ryan), Mexico/California, 1930s
Central America:
Guatemala:
The Most Beautiful Place in the World (Ann Cameron)
South America:
Argentina:
Chucaro: Wild Pony of the Pampa (Francis Calnay)
Peru:
Secret of the Andes (Ann Nolan Clark), modern Inca boy in the mountains
Europe:
Netherlands/Holland:
Hans Brinker/The Silver Skates (Mary Mapes Dodge), 1860s
Dirk’s Dog, Bello (Meindert DeJong)
The Wheel on the School (Meindert DeJong)
Dutch Color (Douglas M. Jones III), golden era of Dutch art 1600s
Sweden:
The Children of Noisy Village (Astrid Lindgren)
England:
The Shakespeare Stealer (Gary Blackwood), Shakespeare’s London, 1600
The Railway Children (Edith Nesbit), early 1900s
The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
Ireland:
Nory Ryan’s Song (Patricia Reilly Giff), potato famine, 1840s
Spain:
The Shadow of a Bull (Maia Wojciechowska), bullfighting
I, Juan de Pareja (Elizabeth Borton de Trevino), art and slavery in 1600s
Switzerland:
Heidi (Johanna Spyri)
Treasures of the Snow (Patricia St. John)
France:
The Family Under the Bridge (Natalie Savage Carlson)
All Alone (Claire Huchet Bishop), French Alps
Twenty and Ten (Claire Huchet Bishop), WWII
Secret Letters From 0 to 10 (Susie Morgenstern), modern France
The Orange Trees of Versailles (Annie Pietri), late 17th century court of Louis XIV
The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Brian Selznick), Paris in the 1930s
Poland:
The Trumpeter of Krakow (Eric P. Kelly), 1400s
Hungary:
The Good Master (Kate Seredy)
Austria/Germany:
The Star of Kazan (Eva Ibbotson)
Russia:
The Night Journey (Kathryn Lasky), Jews escape Czarist Russia turn of century
Angel on the Square (Gloria Whelan), fall of Czar Nikolai 1913-18
The Impossible Journey (Gloria Whelan), Stalinist Russia circa 1934
Burying the Sun (Gloria Whelan), 1941, WWII
The Turning (Gloria Whelan), 1991/Yeltsin/Gorbachev
The Endless Steppe (Esther Hautzig)
Asia:
Japan:
Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes (Eleanor Coerr), WWI,I 1950s
Born in the Year of Courage (Emily Crofford), Japan/US, 1800s
The Samurai’s Tale (Erik Christian Haugaard), 1500s
Korea:
A Single Shard (Linda Sue Park), potters’ village, 1100s
The Kite Fighters (Linda Sue Park), Seoul, 1470s
China:
Li Lun, Lad of Courage (Carolyn Treffinger), fishing village
Little Pear (Eleanor Frances Lattimore), 1800s
The Kite Rider (Geraldine McCaughrean), Mongol-ruled China, 1200s
The House of Sixty Fathers (Meindert DeJong), China during the Japanese invasion, 1930s
Chu Ju’s House (Gloria Whelan), contemporary rural China
Vietnam:
The Land I Lost: Adventures of a Boy in Vietnam (Quang Nhuong Huynh)
Water Buffalo Days: Growing Up in Vietnam (Quang Nhuong Huynh)
Goodbye, Vietnam (Gloria Whelan), contemporary Vietnam/Hong Kong
India:
Daughter of the Mountains (Louise Rankin), Tibet to Calcutta, 1900s
Gay Neck: The Story of a Pigeon (Dhan Gopal Mukerji)
Australia/Oceania:
Australia:
So Far From Skye (Judith O’Neill)
Polynesia:
Call it Courage (Armstrong Sperry)
Africa:
Akimbo and the Lions (and others) (Alexander McCall Smith)
Listening for Lions (Gloria Whelan), East Africa 1919/England
Morocco:
Star of Light (Patricia M. St. John)
King of the Wind (Maguerite Henry)
South Africa:
Journey to Jo’burg: A South African Story (Beverley Naidoo)
Kenya:
Facing the Lion: Growing up Maasai on the African Savanna (Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton)