For elementary school kids:
Lucy Rose series, about a girl who lives on Capitol Hill

I don’t usually like “crime fiction” but I do read George Pelecanos. His most recent one, The Man Who Came Uptown” is set within the past few years and a lot of it is around Petworth/Park View which is sort of fun if you know the area. He’s got books set in a lot of different decades.

Anonymous wrote:Take a look at S Street Rising. It’s a memoir written by a Washington Post reporter who was a crack addict during the height of the epidemic.

This is also a good one, along with Rosa Lee by Leon Dash.

Take a look at S Street Rising. It’s a memoir written by a Washington Post reporter who was a crack addict during the height of the epidemic.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Upstairs at the White House — memoir from long-serving White House butler to numerous First Ladies

Are you thinking of Backstairs at the White House by Lillian Rogers Parks? Also loved that.

+1 for the Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears, plus Kenji Jasper's Dark.

As a teen, I loved Margaret Truman's murder mysteries set at DC landmarks.

No. It’s called Upstairs at the White House by JB West. He was the butler to the first ladies for three decades.

Anonymous wrote:Katherine Graham’s autobiography is one of the best

+1 to Katharine Graham and the Meg Greenfield PP

Anonymous wrote:Katherine Graham’s autobiography is one of the best

Above and When All the World Was Young by Barbara Holland

Anonymous wrote:Richard thompson’s Cul de Sac cartoon books are set in the suburbs of dc and tell the story of the Otterloop family

I miss that comic from the Post! I read it for years and only now got the otterloop reference (like "otterloop of the beltway," is that right?).

Katherine Graham’s autobiography is one of the best

The Washingtonienne memoir.

18 Acres, Government Girl. Best is maybe Washington by Meg Greenfield.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2019/11/24/30-essential-books-about-washington/

Anonymous wrote:Upstairs at the White House — memoir from long-serving White House butler to numerous First Ladies

Are you thinking of Backstairs at the White House by Lillian Rogers Parks? Also loved that.

+1 for the Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears, plus Kenji Jasper's Dark.

As a teen, I loved Margaret Truman's murder mysteries set at DC landmarks.

Sammy's Hill and Sammy's House by Kristin Gore, Al's daughter.

George Pelecanos fictionalizes the historically Black KenGar neighborhood in Kensington in The Turnaround. It's based a real event.

From Amazon:
On a hot summer afternoon in 1972, three teenagers drove into an unfamiliar neighborhood and six lives were altered forever. Thirty-five years later, one survivor of that day reaches out to another, opening a door that could lead to salvation. But another survivor is now out of prison, looking for reparation in any form he can find it.

The Turnaround takes us on a journey from the rock-and-soul streets of the '70s to the changing neighborhoods of D.C. today, from the diners and auto garages of the city to the inside of Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital, where wounded men and women have returned to the world in a time of war. A novel of fathers and sons, wives and husbands, loss, victory and violent redemption, The Turnaround is another compelling, highly charged novel from George Pelecanos, "the best crime novelist in America." -Oregonian

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants