There are well established literary conventions for linking past and present in historical fiction. All have the potential to break down readers' resistance to what they may have seen as boring, irrelevant stories. What Gracey finds out about her family history is important for her future. In Judith Clarke's Friend of My Heart, teenagers find out about their grandmother's friend Bonnie, an Australian army nurse in World War 1. Gary Crew's No Such Country , though not about a 'real' Australian town, also focuses on the legacy of atrocities in the past.
Time slip is a very popular convention.
This means that a 'modern' character enters a 'historical' setting, and thus can respond to societal differences as modern readers might. Brian Caswell's Dreamslip involves 'slipping' to several different historical scenes. The English novel Tom's Midnight Garden by P.Pearce is a classic - beautifully written, it uses the convention to illuminate communication between young and old, and the 'enduring core' of personality which defies time. Issues of War and Peace are pertinent for teenagers in this era of the child soldier. Many historical novels show both soldiers and 'people at home' during wars.