"Confession time: when I was a teenager, not only did I think I was no good at history, I convinced myself that I didn't even like historical fiction. And I hated being told what to read. So stubbornly (and stupidly), I wouldn't go near Rosemary Sutcliffe or Cynthia Harnett or Mary Renault simply because my father kept going on about how marvellous they were. Yet when I think about the books I loved most of all in my youth, I realise that they're nearly all set in the past.

So here is a century of historical novels for the young about change and challenge. They are very loosely linked by themes of revolution, rebellion, resistance and revolt. Some can be read well before you're a teenager; others are worth waiting for. All are books which have got deep under my skin, and widened my view of the world and the past."

Lydia Syson is the author of A World Between Us, an historical adventure for teens set during the Spanish Civil War.
Find out more at www.lydiasyson.com

1. The House of Arden by E Nesbit

A wonderfully argumentative pair of Edwardian siblings and a magical white mole slip in and out of British history, getting tangled up with Gunpowder Plotters, Anne Boleyn, Walter Raleigh, the Old Pretender, a Napoleonic invasion and even escaping from the Tower of London. They are in search of the lost family treasure that will allow them to rebuild Arden Castle – and also improve the living conditions of the cottagers on their estate. E Nesbit was a socialist and an activist, who wrote political hymns as well as creating a new genre of children's fiction. You might call it everyday magic – my favourite kind. Compassionate, clever and ironic, E Nesbit makes me laugh out loud.

2. A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley

Mary Queen of Scots obsessed me for years after reading this superb timeslip novel revolving round the 1582 plot to rescue her from the clutches of her cousin Elizabeth I. Like the book's 20th-century heroine, Penelope, I was more than a little in love with Francis, brother of the doomed plotter, Anthony Babington. Herb gardens, honeysuckle and kirtles, but also ghostly suspense and fear foreshadowed.

3. The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford

Rebellion takes many forms in this hysterically funny novel which somehow manages to find humour even in the tragic aftermath of the Spanish Civil War and get away with it: its heroine Linda is made "serious" by her experiences with Republican refugees in Perpignan. Is it historical? Yes, in the sense that as early as 1945 this 1930s world, inhabited by eccentric aristocrats such as the outrageous Uncle Matthew and die-hard communists like Linda's second husband Christian, had vanished forever. Far be it for me to suggest what you "must read" after this. I merely whisper, Hons and Rebels, Hons and Rebels, Hons and Rebels….

4. The Young Pretenders by Barbara Leonie Picard

Another charming and romantic rebel drives the plot of a novel set soon after the failed Jacobite rebellion of 1745. Or does he? Annabel and her brother live in the north of England in a household of Hanoverians, but they are secretly loyal to Bonnie Prince Charlie. When they find a wounded fugitive hiding from the military, they quickly jump to conclusions. Sadly this is now out of print, but it's easily available second-hand.

5. Miss Rivers and Miss Bridges by Geraldine Symons

My first introduction to the suffragette movement: demonstrations, arrests, window-breaking - it's all here. (Mrs Banks was far too downtrodden to be out campaigning for votes for women in the original Mary Poppins books.) You won't find a wittier, drier, more intellectual or more slovenly heroine than Atalanta, nor a more sympathetic foil than her friend Pansy. Possibly my favourite children's book ever. I don't understand why it's not better known.

6. Midnight is a Place by Joan Aiken

"Time is only a corner, age is only a fold…midnight is no moment, midnight is a place." Vivid social history full of match girls and toshers from a novelist who loved playing games with historical events. (She wrote a whole series in which the Stuart succession is threatened by Hanoverian rebels.) In Midnight is a Place, the mood is Dickensian and über-real, dramatically capturing the relentless drive of industrialisation and capitalism, the language richly inventive. You will never forget the terror of life for a small child as a 'snatcher' in a carpet factory, the giant rats in the Victorian sewers, the icehouse or the fire.

7. Bombs on Aunt Dainty by Judith Kerr

Anna's father was a famous German Jewish writer, whose anti-Nazi views were well known. This meant the family had to flee Berlin as early as 1933 - a story beautifully told in When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. By the time we meet Anna again in London, she can pass for "a nice English gel" on a train, and is excited at the thought of secretarial training and financial independence. But her father is now a nobody, a writer who has lost his language as well as his country, and she's got to look after him. Everything's the other way round. A painful portrayal of intellectual refugee life, exposing all its subtle humiliations and shifts in status.

8. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

This novel-in-letters starts with a child being raped and ends in happiness. Agonising yet uplifting, it's the story of Celie, a young black American woman growing up in rural Georgia, her sister Nettie (who becomes a missionary in Africa) and the mesmerising singer Shug Avery. It was a revelation for me when I read it in my teens. It'll tell you as much about the sexual and racial politics of the 1980s as it will about slavery, segregation and female empowerment in the early 20th century. Best read in a big gulp.

9. Tiger in the Well by Philip Pullman

Two mysteries intertwine in the complex plot of the third Sally Lockhart book, which weaves together a huge number of political and social themes: female independence, the machinations of the legal system, divorce, socialism, immigration, pograms, poverty and corruption. But not for a moment does it preach or read as an "issue" novel. I love Pullman's single-parent, revolver-toting heroine, the gritty East End setting, and the fact that the romantic hero, Dan Goldberg, is a political journalist and agitator.

10. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

This is the most recently written of my top 10, but I have a feeling it too will haunt me for decades, offering surprises with every re-read. Tricky and sharp and atmospheric, it celebrates the love between two women pilots and the incredible bravery of the secret Special Operations Executive (SOE) who worked with the Resistance in occupied France and elsewhere. A thoroughly researched and thoroughly invigorating anatomy of loyalty.

• This article was amended on 29 November 2012 because the caption on the photograph described Mary Queen of Scots as the sister of Elizabeth I.