YA historical fiction quest

I was wondering if you have any middle grade/YA level historical fiction that has stuck with you. I'm getting ready to start a reading spree in the genre focusing on pre-colonial to early 1900s American historical fiction and my stack isn't large enough.

What might that book be? What made it a standout for you?

Wolf by the Ears by Ann Rinaldi (1991) is one that really stood out for me. It was an approachable book, and dealt with Harriet Hemings, but was a bit light on the historical period.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare. I first read it more than 50 years ago and it sold me on the historical fiction genre. It captured both the history of colonial Massachusetts in the witch hunt period and the angst on an adolescent girl who doesn't fit in. It's a stellar novel.

Laurie Halse Anderson's Fever 1793

I endorse the Witch of Blackbird Pond too, I read that as a kid, and I still remember it. I also remember Ben and Me. Those kind of books started me reading biographies (and thus not fiction) as a kid.

The biographies I read included a lot in the series ValueTales, and Childhood of Famous Americans, and Childhood of Famous Americans II.

Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes is also very good, as well as April Morning by Howard Fast, both young man coming-of-age stories set at the beginning of the American Revolution.

Third the recommendation for The Witch of Blackbird Pond.

Also:
Buffalo Soldier by Tanya Landman
Seeds of America trilogy by Laurie Halse Anderson
A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly
The Ballad of Lucy Whipple by Karen Cushman

My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier was the first title that came to me from grade school days. Revolutionary war era.

Not fiction, but I recommend The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom to my fifth and sixth grade friends. A good companion piece to The Diary of Anne Frank.

>8 gmathis: I hadn't even thought about adding Corrie Ten Boom's works; thanks so much

I've been having great fun collecting these recommendations and working to add them to both my class library and the school one.

I would agree with The Witch of Blackbird Pond and 1793.

Also:
Light in the Forest
Johnny Tremain
Sarah Bishop
The Courage of Sarah Noble ( for a really low reader)
Carry On, Mr. Bowditch

The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman, although I read it more recently and not as a kid.

Irene Hunt's No Promises in the Wind is set during the depression.

The Emperor's Winding Sheet, the story of the fall of Constantinople in 1453 from the point of view of Emperor Constantine XI's 12 year old English cupbearer.
Not Colonial-era US, but a very good read all the same.

Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth speare
40 Acres and Maybe a Mule by Harriette Gillem
Lyddie by Katherine Paterson
Island of the Blue Dolphin, Scott O'Dell

Shades of Gray by Carolyn Reeder. post civil war.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain