SOURCE CITATION
"Karen Hesse." Major Authors and Illustrators for Children and Young Adults, 2nd ed., 8 vols. Gale Group, 2002. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007.
Photograph provided by Scholastic Inc.

BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
"A profound and visceral sense of place is one of the qualities that is most memorable about Karen Hesse's writing," wrote Brenda Bowen, Hesse's long-time editor, in Horn Book Magazine. This evaluation, written on the occasion of Hesse's winning the 1998 Newbery Medal, cuts to the heart of Hesse's work. This "sense of place" encompasses not only landscape--physical locations from Russia to Vermont to Oklahoma--but also spaces in the heart and mind. Whether taking on questions of death and hope in Phoenix Rising, of the meaning of being human and its relationship to language in The Music of Dolphins, of the plight of refugees in Letters from Rifka, or of the tenacity of the human spirit as in her Newbery Medal-winning Out of the Dust, Hesse explores her chosen emotional terrain with a deft hand and a poet's eye for telling detail.

History is also part of Hesse's sense of place. Her first three historical novels, Letters from Rifka, A Time of Angels, and Out of the Dust, have transported readers from Russia, Belgium, and the United States in the early 1900s, to Boston and Vermont just following World War I, and to the American Dust Bowl in the 1930s. "I was once told that writing historical fiction was a bad idea," Hesse commented in her Newbery acceptance speech, reprinted in Horn Book Magazine. "No market for it. I didn't listen. I love research, love dipping into another time and place, and asking questions in a way that helps me see both the question and answer with a clearer perspective. . . . Often, our lives are so crowded, we need to hold to what is essential and weed out what is not." Reading historical fiction, she continued, "gives us perspective, respite from the bustle of everyday life, and helps us come to grips with the notion that there are not always answers to life's questions. It gives us a safe place in which we can grow, transform, transcend. It helps us understand that sometimes the questions are too hard, that sometimes there are no answers, that sometimes there is only forgiveness."

Hesse was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1952, long after the events of which she so lovingly writes. She grew up in a row house, and later in an apartment in the Baltimore suburbs. Hesse once described her childhood persona: "Thin and pasty, I looked like I'd drifted in from another world and never quite belonged in this one." A sickly child, she could only be soothed by a ride in the family car. Her older brother, Mark, was a close ally, and books became another. Hesse recalled in an essay for Something about the Author Autobiography Series (SAAS) that her "childhood home provided few places for private retreat." To find privacy, she would go out the back door and climb into an apple tree. "There, cradled in the boughs of the tree, I spent hours reading. Often my bony bottom would go numb, but I loved it up there so much, I ignored the discomfort."

Another sanctuary for Hesse was the Enoch Pratt Free Library near her house. "Beginning with Dr. Seuss, I read my way through the picture books, the shorter chapter books, and finally the novels," she wrote in SAAS. As she neared her teenage years, she began to read adult novels, and one of these was John Hersey's Hiroshima, a book "that changed my life," Hesse recalled. "The courage, the profound compassion, dignity, and humanity of the Japanese people in the face of such unfathomable destruction helped me see the world in a way I never had before. When I closed the covers of Hiroshima, I closed the door on my childhood." The impact of this book would later be felt in her own novel about nuclear disaster, Phoenix Rising.

Reading provided one alternate world for the shy Hesse; an active imagination provided yet another. As a young girl she believed she could fly and once had to be restrained by her mother from jumping out of an upstairs window in an attempt to take wing. She also had a favorite cat whose ghost she saw after its death. There were angels, too, in her childhood cosmology. "I saw the sky open late one night when I was no older than ten or twelve," she noted in SAAS. "As I watched, angels descended earthward." These, and other events of her childhood were filed away, to be used decades later in the pages of her fiction.

Hesse's father was a collection man, and sometimes father and daughter would drive around together on his rounds, an experience that taught her a degree of sympathy for people who were less well off than she was. When her mother remarried, the new domestic package included not only a stepfather, with whom she became very close, but also a stepsister who was exotic looking, beautiful, and a professional dancer. Hesse jealously began to compete for attention--a new impulse for her. In high school she joined in amateur dramatics. "I loved being on stage," she wrote in SAAS, "being someone else. And I definitely got noticed. . . . I lost myself in my character to the point that I'd forget I was on stage. Suddenly I sort of 'woke up' and noticed people were crying."

Hesse's grades were poor in her freshman and sophomore years, but they improved in her last two years of high school. With the help of an enthusiastic drama teacher, she was admitted to Towson State College. However, her studies were cut short after just two years, when she met her future husband. "I fell in love . . . my very first year at college and figured out pretty quickly that I couldn't be in love and in the theater at the same time," she noted in SAAS. "Both commitments required 100 per cent of my heart and soul. I gave up theater. I've never regretted my decision." In 1971, the young couple eloped, and soon after that Hesse's husband was shipped out by the navy for the Mediterranean.

Hesse lived in Norfolk, Virginia, while she waited for her husband's return. She also finished her undergraduate work, transferring to the University of Maryland, where she helped to pay her way by working in the university library. During this time she began writing and giving readings, gaining a reputation for herself as a poet. Upon graduation, Hesse worked for a time as a leave-benefit coordinator for her alma mater, but mostly she took work that was close to books and words: as an advertising secretary, a typesetter, and a proofreader. Upon settling in Vermont, Hesse and her husband had two children, one in 1979 and one in 1982; both were born at home. Hesse's poetry was put on hold by motherhood, but soon she was experimenting with writing books. "It was typesetting that led me to believe I could succeed as a children's book writer," she noted in SAAS. "Some of the work I set struck me as very unsatisfying. I thought I could write at least as well if not better."

Hesse's editor, Bowen, recalled in Horn Book Magazine receiving an early attempt by the Newbery winner: the story of a family's encounter with Bigfoot. "The story was not credible, but the time and place were palpable," Bowen commented. "The voice was something to remember. I thought: This is a writer." Bowen also recalled the fledgling writer's intriguing address: Star Route in Vermont. When several years later Bowen received another submission from Star Route, she was eager to see the new work. Enclosed were story ideas for picture books, one of them titled "Wish on a Unicorn." While Bowen liked the story, she felt it needed to be fleshed out. The result was Hesse's first novel, Wish on a Unicorn. According to Bowen, it "held in it so many seeds of (Hesse's) later work: an underprivileged family; a child who has had to shoulder more responsibility than she should; a longing to fix things for people who can't fix them for themselves. And that strong sense of place."

Sixth-grader Maggie, the protagonist of Wish on a Unicorn, loves her younger brother, Mooch, and her slightly brain-damaged sister, Hannie, but sometimes feels overwhelmed with the responsibility of looking after them while their single-parent mom works nights. At school, the kids give the whole family a hard time, especially when Hannie wets herself. As a result, Maggie's afraid that she'll never have friends. When Hannie finds a dirty stuffed unicorn, she begins to believe that the toy animal has magical powers to grant wishes. In spite of herself, Maggie also begins to believe in the powers of the unicorn, and some wishes even come true--though not necessarily in the way she hoped. Eventually a family crisis--the disappearance of Hannie and her unicorn--crystallizes the importance of family for Maggie.

Reviewing this debut novel in Horn Book Magazine, Nancy Vasilakis noted that "Hesse has written a compassionate story of a family who have little in the way of worldly goods but who are rich in solidarity and spirit." Vasilakis also observed that the "use of the unicorn as a symbol of this family's essential strength is understated and effective." Booklist's Hazel Rochman commented that "the poverty is palpable," and that kids "will be moved by the burdens on the oldest girl, who resents adult responsibility and yet finds the loving strength to reach beyond her years."

Hesse's next book drew its inspiration from her own family's history. Based on the experiences of her great-aunt, Letters from Rifka tells of the adventures of a young Jewish girl and her family. The letters of the title, written in the margins and blank pages of a treasured book of Alexander Pushkin's poetry, are penned by the young girl, Rifka, to her cousin Tovah. Fleeing the harsh conditions that exist for Jews in Russia in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution, Rifka's family first crosses into Poland in 1919. There they are humiliatingly examined by a doctor and are stricken by typhus. They survive, make their way to Belgium and then sail for America. However, Rifka catches ringworm trying to help a fellow passenger on the way to Warsaw, and she is denied passage on the ship. Rifka lives with a Belgian family while she recovers. When she finally leaves to join her family in America, Rifka survives a storm at sea and then is detained by immigration officials at Ellis Island because of the baldness caused by ringworm. During the weeks of detainment, she befriends a young Russian boy who is in a similar predicament. At her hearing, Rifka makes an eloquent plea on behalf of both herself and her new friend. Thus reunited with her family, she begins a new life.

Hesse's second book was enthusiastically received by reviewers. Writing in Horn Book Magazine, Hanna B. Zeiger commented that this "moving account of a brave young girl's story brings to life the day-to-day trials and horrors experienced by many immigrants as well as the resourcefulness and strength they found within themselves." Rochman, writing in Booklist, maintained that "the narrative flashes occasionally with lively Yiddish idiom" and that "the emerging sense of Rifka's personality" is what "especially raises it above docu-novel." Writing in Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, Betsy Hearne observed that while many novels have focused on the immigration experiences of the Jews of Russia, Letters from Rifka "is vivid in detailing the physical and emotional toll exacted for passage." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly concurred: "Hesse's vivacious tale colorfully and convincingly refreshes the immigrant experience."

A pair of picture books and two chapter books followed for Hesse: warm family and pet stories. In the picture book Poppy's Chair, Hesse deals with death in the family when young Leah goes to visit her grandparents' home in the summer following the death of her beloved grandfather, Poppy. His empty chair is a reminder of his parting, but her Gramm helps Leah to remember Poppy with fondness and joy. A critic in Kirkus Reviews called the book "thoughtful and well crafted." In her second picture book, Lester's Dog, Hesse told "an appealing story which documents a small boy's triumph over fear," according to Mary M. Burns in Horn Book Magazine. The narrator is frightened of Lester's dog, a mean and rather terrifying animal that seems to enjoy scaring the protagonist each time he passes. But to save a stray kitten, the book's narrator overcomes his fear. "The first-person style is immediate," Burns noted, "making the reader privy to the teller's reactions." A Publishers Weekly reviewer concluded that this "unassuming tale shimmers with wisdom and persuasive intelligence."

Hesse's chapter books mirror the themes of these picture books: Lavender deals with "a child's joyful relationship with a loving relative," according to Booklist's Rochman, while Sable once again has a dog as the catalyst for action. In Lavender, Codie's favorite aunt is about to have a baby, and Codie is beset by worries: Will she be able to finish quickly enough the baby quilt she is making, will her aunt and the baby be healthy, and most importantly, will her aunt still have time for Codie now that she has a new child? Codie's fears are put to rest when she is allowed to hold her new cousin, wrapped in her own quilt. Rochman concluded that Hesse's "first-person, present-tense narrative is understated; the plain words intensify the meaning of extended family." Rita Soltan, writing in School Library Journal, called Lavender a "fresh, gentle approach to a standard theme."

In Sable, Tate is overjoyed when a stray dog turns up one day; she names it for its dark and silky fur. But keeping her beloved Sable is an uphill battle from the beginning, and finally, after complaints from neighbors, Tate is forced to give the dog to Doc Winston, who has plenty of room for the dog to roam. Attempts to win her dog back ultimately fail when Tate learns that Sable has run away. In the course of her attempts, however, Tate has learned valuable lessons about life and gains a renewed connection to her own family. When Sable finally reappears, Tate is mature enough to assume responsibility for her pet. Maggie McEwen, in School Library Journal, called Sable an "exceptional dog story" whose plot and characterization "effortlessly evolve" through Tate's "honest and direct" narration. Horn Book Magazine's Elizabeth S. Watson noted that Sable was "a dog tale sweet and scary enough for any budding pet lover," and that it was a "perfect theme and text for an early chapter book full of warmth and reassurance."

Catastrophic events are also at the heart of Hesse's fourth novel for older readers, A Time of Angels. However, instead of the future, the reader is transported into the past, to the influenza epidemic which spread throughout the world following World War I. Hannah and her sisters are living in Boston with Tanta Rose, waiting for their parents to return from Europe. Rose is killed by the flu and her sisters are also infected. Evacuated from the city, Hannah, too, comes down with the flu, and ends up in Brattleboro, Vermont, guided by an angel who has saved her life before. She is brought back to health by an old German farmer, a local outcast because of his former nationality. A Publishers Weekly reviewer noted that in A Time of Angels, "Hesse intensifies the apocalyptic mood of (her previous book) Phoenix Rising, palpably recreating the terror in the streets as the influenza spreads," while Hearne commented in Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, "Hesse has taken on a lot here and managed to do justice to it all."

Doing justice to the characters in her fiction is what concerns Hesse most. "Let me tell you," she said in her Newbery acceptance speech. "I never make up any of the bad things that happen to my characters. I love my characters too much to hurt them deliberately, even the prickly ones. It just so happens that in life, there's pain; sorrow lives in the shadow of joy, joy in the shadow of sorrow. The question is, do we let the pain reign triumphant, or do we find a way to grow, to transform, and ultimately transcend our pain?" These are questions Hesse asks herself every day as she sits down to her work. A methodical writer, she sticks to a routine as much as possible, arising at 5:00 a.m. each day to begin work. Even on weekends she maintains the early hours, though on those days she busies herself answering mail from readers around the world.

Hesse's fifth novel for older readers, The Music of Dolphins, was lauded by a Publishers Weekly reviewer, who called the work "as moving as a sonnet, as eloquently structured as a bell Curve," and an effort that "poignantly explores the most profound of themes--what it means to be human." The narrator of the tale, Mila, is a so-called feral child, raised by dolphins. As a four-year-old, she survived a plane crash off the coast of Cuba and has been nurtured by dolphins for ten years, until her discovery by the Coast Guard. Dubbed Mila, "miracle" in Spanish, the girl becomes the subject of a government study. She is taught language and music by a team of scientists, and learns with amazing speed, attempting in turn to teach the scientists dolphin language. But all the while, the call of the wild continues to echo in Mila's head, and she longs to return to her island. "Mila's rich inner voice makes her a lovely, lyrical character," noted Mary Arnold in Voice of Youth Advocates. Arnold went on to observe that the book was a "profound study of being human and the ways in which communication unites and separates human beings." A critic in Kirkus Reviews lauded the book, calling it a "probing look at what makes us human, with an unforgettable protagonist." A Publishers Weekly contributor further commented that "Hesse succeeds" in pulling off the tricky plot in a "frequently dazzling novel," while Kate McClelland, in a School Library Journal review, concluded that this "powerful exploration of how we become human and how the soul endures is a song of beauty and sorrow, haunting and unforgettable."

The same words have been used to describe Billie Jo and the events of Hesse's next novel, Out of the Dust. Hesse worked on the novel for several years, drawing inspiration from a car trip to Colorado in 1993. She was awestruck by the country she saw, amazed by the subtle varieties of color and by the wind that never ceased. It took her years to internalize these feelings, to assimilate them into a creative direction and meld them with a historical look at the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s. Next she saturated herself in research, reading her way through newspapers of the time, getting the feel of the life of those days in details of how people actually lived. Then came characters, Billie Jo and her family, and the format, free verse. Hesse's roots in writing were with poetry; now she returned to those roots. "I never attempted to write this book any other way than in free verse," she noted in her Newbery acceptance speech. "The frugality of the life, the hypnotically hard work of farming, the grimness of conditions during the dust bowl demanded an economy of words."

Hesse's intent was a spare understatement, and that is what the book provides in its glimpse of a bygone way of life. The family barely scrapes together a living, with the father refusing to plant anything but wheat. Yet this crop is destroyed by the winds and dust time after time. Dust is everywhere, in the sills, on the piano keys, in the body: "Daddy came in, / he sat across from Ma and blew his nose. / Mud streamed out. / He coughed and spit out / mud. / If he had cried, / his tears would have been mud too, / but he didn't cry. / And neither did Ma." Billie Jo takes solace in her piano playing, until her mother and infant brother are killed in a kitchen fire. Billie Jo is scarred on her hands and soul, and both her father and Billie Jo bottle up their grief for a time. The young girl becomes an outcast until finally both she and her father build hope out of utter desolation, and redefine what it means to be a family.

Reviewers enthusiastically praised Out of the Dust. Booklist's Susan Dove Lempke commented that although the story was bleak, "Hesse's writing transcends the gloom and transforms it into a powerfully compelling tale of a girl with enormous strength, courage, and love." Sarah K. Hetz noted in Voice of Youth Advocates that this "novel celebrates the tenacity of the human spirit." Peter D. Sieruta observed in Horn Book Magazine that Billie Jo's voice, "nearly every word informed by longing, provides an immediacy that expressively depicts both a grim historical era and one family's healing." Thomas S. Owens, writing in Five Owls, felt that Hesse's novel was more than "vivid storytelling," and that it "gives a face to history." Owens went on to conclude that "Out of the Dust seems destined to become (Hesse's) signature work, a literary groundbreaker as stunning as Oklahoma's dust bowl recovery." The 1998 Newbery Medal was presented to Hesse for this vivid historical recreation.

"Occasionally, adult readers grimace at the events documented in Out of the Dust, " the author noted in her Newbery acceptance speech. "They ask, how can this book be for young readers? I ask, how can it not? The children I have met during my travels around the country have astounded me with their perception, their intelligence, their capacity to take in information and apply it to a greater picture, or take in the greater picture and distill it down to what they need from it." Hesse also commented that young readers ask for substance in the books they read, for books that challenge. That is something that she hopes to keep providing.

"I love writing," Hesse explained in SAAS. "I can't wait to get to my desk every morning. I wish everyone felt that way about their chosen profession. Writing is not easy. I work for long hours and sometimes all that work disappoints me and I throw it out and begin again. . . . The thing about writing . . . until your words become a book you can change them, mold them, shape and reshape them until they look and sound and feel precisely the way you want."

Hesse has continued to produce historically based novels for children that are both entertaining and informative. In A Light in the Storm: The Civil War Diary of Amelia Martin, Hesse provides a look at the chaotic life of young Ameilia Martin during the Civil War. The character is based on Ida Lewis, who was a Rhode Island light keeper during the Civil War. In Stowaway, a butcher's apprentice flees eighteenth-century England as a stowaway on Captain James Cook's ship, which sails to the South Pacific. "The author's subtle yet thorough attention to detail creates a memorable tale that is a virtual encyclopedia of life in the days when England ruled the seas," wrote reviewer William McLoughlin in the School Library Journal.

Hesse turned readers attention to the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s with her book Witness. Written in free verse like Out of the Dust, Witness uses various people from a small Vermont town, including victims and victimizers, to tell this tale. Writing in School Library Journal, Lauralyn Persson called Witness a "remarkable and powerful book." She concluded, "The small details seem just right, and demonstrate that this is much more than a social tract. It's a thoughtful look at people and their capacity for love and hate." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly likewise praised the book and noted, "The author of Out of the Dust again turns language into music."

According to Bowen, Hesse is extremely empathic and "makes everyone feel cherished--from the taxi drivers in New York who are startled by such unprovoked kindness; to her family, her publishers, her friends." However, Bowen, also pointed out that Hesse "has a backbone of steel." As for Hesse, her goal in writing is clear. "Ultimately, the most important thing for me is to write the best book I am capable of writing," Hesse said in a Publishers Weekly article. "And get it into the readers' hands. Whatever I can do, to do that, I'll do."

PERSONAL INFORMATION
Born August 29, 1952, in Baltimore, MD; married Randy Hesse, November 27, 1971; children: Kate, Rachel. Avocation: Reading, hiking, and music. Education: University of Maryland, B.A., 1975. Memberships: Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (leader of South Vermont chapter, 1985-92). Addresses: Agent--c/o Scholastic, Inc., 555 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

CAREER
Writer, 1969--. Leave benefit coordinator for the University of Maryland, 1975-76; worked variously as a teacher, a librarian, an advertising secretary, a typesetter, and a proofreader. Affiliated with Mental Health Care and Hospice, 1988--; Newfane Elementary School board chair, 1989; board member of Moore Free Library, 1989-91.