Karen Hesse | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 29, 1952 Baltimore, Maryland |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Towson State College |
| Alma mater | University of Maryland, College Park |
| Notable awards | Newbery Medal; MacArthur Fellow |
| Spouse | Randy Hesse |
Karen S. Hesse (born August 29, 1952) is an American author of children's literature and literature for young adults, often with historical settings. [1] She received the Newbery Medal for Out of the Dust (1997).
Karen Hesse was born in Baltimore, Maryland. She studied math at nearby Towson State College and married Randy Hesse in 1971 before completing her studies. [2] She attended college at Towson University, the University of Maryland, and College Park. She earned a B.A. in English with double minors in psychology, and anthropology, [3] during which she began writing poetry.
After graduating, she moved with her husband to Brattleboro, Vermont, had two children, Rachel and Kate, took jobs in publishing, and started writing children's books.
Her first novel was a rejected story about meeting Bigfoot, but her next proposal was published by Henry Holt in 1991 as Wish on a Unicorn. [2]
Out of the Dust is a story of a girl living through the dust bowl of the Depression. The mother of the central character dies giving birth to her stillborn brother Franklin. After the mother dies, Billie Jo and her father try to continue with their lives.
Hesse tackled a more disturbing subject in the 2001 verse novel Witness . The Ku Klux Klan, re-invigorated in the 1920s (in this book, 1924 and '25) tries to take over a small Vermont town. The book is written from the perspectives of several people - Merlin Van Tornhout and Johnny Reeves, both members of the Klan; Sara Chickering, a farmer; Esther Hirsh, a six-year-old Jewish girl; Leonora Sutter, an African American girl; Iris Weaver, a restaurateur; Harvey and Viola Pettibone, shop owners; Reynard Alexander, a newspaper editor; Fitzgerald Flitt, the doctor; and Percelle Johnson, the town constable. In Witness Hesse continued the distinctive poetic/prose style she pioneered in Out of the Dust.
Hesse also wrote The Music of Dolphins , about a girl who was raised by dolphins.
Stowaway, first published in 2000 by Simon & Schuster USA, is based on the true story of an 11-year-old boy who stowed away on Captain James Cook's ship Endeavour in 1768. The UK version of this book is published under the title Young Nick's Head. It is in the format of a diary written by Nicholas Young, the cabin boy on the Endeavour.
Brooklyn Bridge is based on the true story of the family who created the teddy bear in Brooklyn in 1903.
At age 68 years, she was living with her husband, still in Brattleboro, Vermont.
Hesse was a MacArthur Fellow in 2002.
For Out of the Dust (Scholastic, 1997), she won the Newbery Medal from the American Library Association, recognizing the year's "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children", and the annual Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction.
Letters from Rifka (MacMillan, 1992) won an International Reading Association Award and a National Jewish Book Award. [4]
In 2012 Hesse received the Phoenix Award from the Children's Literature Association for Letters from Rifka, recognizing the best children's book published twenty years earlier that did not win a major award. [5]
Rosemary Sutcliff was an English novelist best known for children's books, especially historical fiction and retellings of myths and legends. Although she was primarily a children's author, some of her novels were specifically written for adults. In a 1986 interview she said, "I would claim that my books are for children of all ages, from nine to ninety."
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a 2001 guide book written by British author J. K. Rowling about the magical creatures in the Harry Potter universe. The original version, illustrated by the author herself, purports to be Harry Potter's copy of the textbook of the same name mentioned in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the first novel of the Harry Potter series. It includes several notes inside it supposedly handwritten by Harry, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger, detailing their own experiences with some of the beasts described, and including inside jokes relating to the original series.
Elaine Lobl Konigsburg was an American writer and illustrator of children's books and young adult fiction. She is one of six writers to win two Newbery Medals, the venerable American Library Association award for the year's "most distinguished contribution to American children's literature."
The Nestlé Children's Book Prize, and Nestlé Smarties Book Prize for a time, was a set of annual awards for British children's books that ran from 1985 to 2007. It was administered by BookTrust, an independent charity that promotes books and reading in the United Kingdom, and sponsored by Nestlé, the manufacturer of Smarties candy. It was one of the most respected and prestigious prizes for children's literature.
Gillian Honorine Mary Herbert, Baroness Hemingford,, known professionally as Jill Paton Walsh, was an English novelist and children's writer. She may be known best for her Booker Prize-nominated novel Knowledge of Angels and for the Peter Wimsey–Harriet Vane mysteries that continued the work of Dorothy L. Sayers.
Out of the Dust is a children's verse novel by Karen Hesse, first published on January 1, 1997.
James John Patrick Murphy was an American author. He wrote more than 35 nonfiction and fiction books for children, young adults, and general audiences, including more than 30 about American history. He won the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association in 2010 for his contribution in writing for teens.
Charlotte Zolotow was an American writer, poet, editor, and publisher of many books for children. She wrote about 70 picture book texts.
Natalie Zane Babbitt was an American writer and illustrator of children's books. Her 1975 novel Tuck Everlasting was adapted into two feature films and a Broadway musical. She received the Newbery Honor and Christopher Award, and was the U.S. nominee for the biennial international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1982.
Jon J Muth is an American writer and illustrator of children's books as well as graphic novels and comic books.
Betsy Reilly Lewin is an American illustrator from Clearfield, Pennsylvania. She studied illustration at Pratt Institute. After graduation, she began designing greeting cards. She began writing and illustrating stories for children's magazines and eventually children's books. She is married to children's book illustrator Ted Lewin and with him has co-written and illustrated several books about their travels to remote places, including Uganda in Gorilla Walk and Mongolia in Horse Song, as well as How to Babysit a Leopard: and Other True Stories from Our Travels Across Six Continents. She is arguably best known for the Caldecott Honor Book Click Clack Moo: Cows that Type.
The Blue Peter Book Awards were a set of literary awards for children's books conferred by the BBC television programme Blue Peter. They were inaugurated in 2000 for books published in 1999 and 2000. The awards were managed by reading charity, BookTrust, from 2006 until the final award in 2022. From 2013 until the final award, there were two award categories: Best Story and Best Book with Facts.
Letters From Rifka is a children's historical novel by Karen Hesse, published by Holt in 1992. It features a Jewish family's emigration from Russia in 1919, to Belgium and ultimately to the U.S., from the perspective of daughter Rifka, based on the personal account by Hesse's great-aunt Lucille Avrutin.
The E.B. White Read Aloud Award was established in 2004 by The Association of Booksellers for Children (ABC) to honor books that its membership felt embodied the universal read aloud standards that were created by the work of the author E.B. White.
Victoria Forester is a Canadian author and a screenwriter. She is known for her novel, The Girl Who Could Fly.
Margi Preus is an American children's writer. She is a 2011 Newbery Honor winner and won the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature for Heart of a Samurai. Her books have won multiple awards, honored as ALA/ALSC Notables, landed on many "best of" lists, featured on NPR, chosen for community reads, and translated into many languages.*
Cynthia Carter DeFelice is an American children's writer. She has written 16 novels and 12 picture books for young readers. The intended audience for her novels is children of reading ages nine to twelve.
Martha Brockenbrough is an American author of fiction and nonfiction for children and adults. Her first book, It Could Happen To You: Diary Of A Pregnancy and Beyond, was published by Andrews McMeel Publishing in 2002. She is the founder of The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar (SPOGG) and of National Grammar Day.
Michael Charles Thaler, known as Mike Thaler, is an American author and illustrator of children's books. He has published over 210 books between 1961 and 2017.
The Freeman Book Awards are annual awards for new young adult and children's literature, that contribute meaningfully to an understanding of East and Southeast Asia.
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