Historical Fiction


For my historical fiction picture book I chose Titanicat. It's a story about a cabin boy working on the Titanic named Jim who was in charge of taking care of the ship's cat. He named the cat 4-0-1 after the ship's number. 4-0-1 had four kittens before the ship took off to America and decided to save the kittens by getting them off the boat (it was believed that cats can sense when something bad is going to happen). Jim could not find the cat anywhere, when he looked overboard he saw the cat was leaving with a kitten in its mouth, Jim also noticed one cat was forgotten on the ship. He decides to get off the ship to give the cat her kitten and the ship leaves Jim, 4-0-1, and her kittens which happened to be a great decision for all of them. 

The illustrations in the book were beautiful, they were detailed and realistic. It really brought the story to life. Robert Papp did an excellent job depicting Crisp's words perfectly through his illustrations.

One of the major themes I got from the book was friendship. You can tell Jim really cared for 4-0-1 by the way he looked after her, the way he sacrificed for her, and by how grateful he was to her that she kind of pushed him to get off the boat.


For my historical fiction novel I chose The War That Saved My Life. It was about a girl named Ada who grew up with her brother Jamie during World War II. Ada and Jamie end up evacuating from the war and staying with Susan Smith. The story goes through Ada's issues with her twisted foot, confidence, and trust. What makes the story historical fiction is because it is set in London during the war and includes factual descriptions of what it was like then.

The major theme I got from this story was love. Ada and Ms. Smith's relationship was subconsciously the love that each of them needed and they underestimated their importance to one another. It taught a lesson of how love can be shown in different ways and it is not always the typical image of love. It also showed us that everyone is worth loving and capable of it too. 

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