Hope's Revolutionary War Diary Books in Order

Hope's Revolutionary War Diary is one of Kristiana Gregory's most accessible historical series. Written for younger readers, it follows Hope Penny Potter through the American Revolution in three short diary-style books: Five Smooth Stones, We Are Patriots, and When Freedom Comes. The setting is Philadelphia, and that matters. Instead of seeing the war only from battlefields, readers watch it change streets, shops, friendships, and family life right at home.

Hope is younger than many of Gregory's other heroines, and that gives the series its tone. She notices grown-up conflict without fully controlling it. In Five Smooth Stones, she is living through the confusion of 1776 as tensions rise between Patriots and Tories. Her father is absent, her brother takes a different side, and the family bakery sits in the middle of a city where politics keeps turning personal.

The series gets stronger as it goes because the war keeps pressing closer.

In the later books, Hope has to live with divided loyalties, occupied streets, and the constant fear that the people she loves may not come home safely. Her friendship with Polly, whose family is loyal to the king, adds another layer. Gregory does a good job showing how children can care for one another even when adults are pulled apart by politics, suspicion, and war.

What makes these books work especially well for younger readers is their scale. The Revolution is present in every chapter, but the story is still built from things a child would feel first: worry about a missing father, anger at a brother, pride in helping at home, confusion about what side is right, and the wish for peace to return. Hope is brave, but she is not unrealistically brave. She gets frightened, frustrated, and lonely, which keeps the voice believable.

The tone is gentler than Gregory's older Dear America novels, but the history is not softened beyond recognition. British occupation, scarcity, divided neighborhoods, and the long stretch of uncertainty are all part of the series. That mix, warmth with real stakes, is exactly why so many readers start here when they want Revolutionary War fiction for younger children.

Start with Five Smooth Stones, then move straight through We Are Patriots and When Freedom Comes. The three books function best as one continuous journey. By the end, readers have not only followed Hope as she grows from nine to eleven, they have also seen how a war reshapes everyday life from the inside out.