I asked a question on X/Twitter earlier today about historical novels for my eldest daughter (she’s thirteen).
Anyway, it became a bit popular (due mainly to a retweet from Twitter Celebrity Moose Allain whom you should definitely follow if you don’t already).
Anyway, as a result I got rather a lot of responses and so I made a quick spreadsheet, which still needs a lot of work but I wanted to capture as much as I could before it all slipped by in the timeline. I’ve made it possible to comment on the spreadsheet too.
My daughter loves reading (both my daughters do) and she’s recently got more and more into reading historical novels. She’s gained quite a knowledge of the Tudors and right now she’s really into the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
Stories are a great way into learning a bit about history. Personally I loved Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel; I don’t know how historically accurate those books are (or indeed any of the other suggestions people made) but then history can be pretty vague anyway, and more often than not a matter of opinion. Finding something engaging is probably a lot more important in the beginning than complete accuracy. Once you’re passionate you can start to dig deep.
I’m going to keep working on the list. I’m particularly keen to organise it a bit more by era and add some notes. I’m also not sure how suitable all the books are for a thirteen year old so I’m going to do a bit of investigating. If you’ve read any of the books and have opinions please let me know here, on Twitter or in the spreadsheet. And if there’s something that would make it more useful to you then tell me. Thanks!