Karen Hesse Books In Order

Novels

  1. Wish On a Unicorn (1991)
  2. Letters from Rifka (1992)
  3. Phoenix Rising (1994)
  4. A Time of Angels (1995)
  5. The Music of Dolphins (1996)
  6. Out of the Dust (1997)
  7. Just Juice (1998)
  8. The Stowaway (2000)
  9. Young Nick’s Head (2001)
  10. Witness (2001)
  11. Aleutian Sparrow (2003)
  12. Brooklyn Bridge (2008)
  13. Safekeeping (2012)

Collections

  1. What You Wish For: A Book for Darfur (2011)

Picture Books

  1. Poppy’s Chair (1993)
  2. Lester’s Dog (1993)
  3. Come On, Rain (1999)
  4. The Cats in Krasinski Square (2004)
  5. Spuds (2008)
  6. My Thumb (2016)
  7. Night Job (2018)
  8. Nights with Dad (2018)

Chapter Books

  1. Lavender (1993)
  2. Sable (1994)

Anthologies edited

  1. First Light (2003)
  2. Stone Lamp (2003)

Non fiction

  1. The Young Hans Christian Andersen (2005)

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Karen Hesse Books Overview

Wish On a Unicorn

Now I didn t believe a broken down old unicorn could make wishes come true…
not for a minute. But what if it could?

Mags has a lot to wish for a nice house with a mama who isn t tired out from work; a normal little sister; a brother who doesn t mooch for food; and, once in a while, she d like some new clothes for school. When her sister Hannie finds a stuffed unicorn, Mags’s wishes start to come true. She knows the unicorn can t really be magic, but she won t let anything ruin her newfound luck even if it means telling her own sister to believe something that can t possibly be true.

Letters from Rifka

Rifka knows nothing about America when she flees from Russia with her family in 1919. But she dreams that in the new country she will at last be safe from the Russian soldiers and their harsh treatment of the Jews. Throughout her journey, Rifka carries with her a cherished volume of poetry by Alexander Pushkin. In it, she records her observations and experiences in the form of letters to Tovah, the beloved cousin she has left behind. Strong hearted and determined, Rifka must endure a great deal: humiliating examinations by doctors and soldiers, deadly typhus, separation from all she has ever known and loved, murderous storms at sea, detainment on Ellis Island and is if this is not enough, the loss of her glorious golden hair. Based on a true story from the author’s family, Letters from Rifka presents a real life hero*ine with an uncommon courage and unsinkable spirit. Karen Hesse calls Letters from Rifka a gift to my grandparents and to my heritage, and to people like Rifka who have made the passage between two worlds. The acclaimed writer of more than twenty books for children, she has received numerous honors for her writing, including the Scott O Dell Historical Fiction Award, the MacArthur Fellowship Genius Award, the Christopher Award, and the Newbery Medal. Ms. Hesse is also the author of PHOENIX RISING and WISH ON A UNICORN, both will be available from Square Fish, and her newest book, BROOKLYN BRIDGE will be published by Feiwel and Friends in Fall 2008. She lives in Brattleboro, Vermont.

Phoenix Rising

Nyle’s life with her grandmother on their Vermont sheep farm advances rhythmically through the seasons until the night of the accident at the Cookshire nuclear power plant. Without warning, Nyle s modest world fills with protective masks, evacuations, contaminated food, disruptions, and mistrust. Things become even more complicated when Ezra Trent and his mother, refugees from the heart of the accident, take temporary shelter in the back bedroom of Nyle s house. The back bedroom is the dying room: It took her mother when Nyle was six; it stole away her grandfather just two years ago. Now, Ezra is back there and Nyle doesn t want to open her heart to him. Too many times she s let people in, only to have them desert her. If she lets herself care for Ezra, she knows he ll end up leaving her, too. The author s understated approach heightens the emotional impact of her searching and memorable tale. Publishers Weekly, Starred Review Hesse transcends the specific to illuminate universal questions of responsibility, care, and love…
. Hesse portrays her characters anguish and their growing tenderness with such unwavering clarity and grace that she sustains the tension of her lyrical, understated narrative right to her stunning, beautifully wrought conclusion. Kirkus Reviews, Pointer Review

A Time of Angels

In 1918, war separates Hannah Gold and her younger sisters from their parents. The girls stay with their Tanta Rose in the West End of Boston while the await the return of their Mother and Father and the beloved family life they once knew. When a deadly influenza epidemic strikes, Hannah and her aunt struggle to keep illness at bay. But evertually, like so many others, Tanta Rose and younger girls succumb to the virus. Hannah flees Boston to seek refuge with a relative but falls ill on the train. As the fever intensifies strange voices and faces surround Hannah, most remarkably a girl with violet eyes who seems to always turn up at the right moment in the most unexpected place. Through every devestating turn, Hannah continues to hold out hope of being reunited with her family. Will she realize her dreams?

The Music of Dolphins

A stunning novel about a ‘wild girl’ who is discovered swimming with the dolphins, and the story of people’s attempts to make her truly human. Mila creates headlines around the world when she is rescued from an unpopulated island off the coast of Florida. Now a teenager, she has been raised by dolphins from the age of four. Researchers teach Mila language and music. She learns, too, about rules and expectations, about locked doors and broken promises, disappointment and betrayal. The more Mila finds out what it means to be human, the more deeply she longs for her island home. With a highly original narrative style to mirror its plot, this is an unusual, moving and appealing story which stays in the mind long after it is read.

Out of the Dust

When Billie Jo is just fourteen she must endure heart wrenching ordeals that no child should have to face. The quiet strength she displays while dealing with unspeakable loss is as surprising as it is inspiring.

Written in free verse, this award winning story is set in the heart of the Great Depression. It chronicles Oklahoma’s staggering dust storms, and the environmental and emotional turmoil they leave in their path. An unforgettable tribute to hope and inner strength. /Content /EditorialReview EditorialReview Source Amazon. com Review /Source Content Like the Oklahoma dust bowl from which she came, 14 year old narrator Billie Jo writes in sparse, free floating verse. In this compelling, immediate journal, Billie Jo reveals the grim domestic realities of living during the years of constant dust storms: That hopes like the crops blow away in the night like skittering tumbleweeds. That trucks, tractors, even Billie Jo’s beloved piano, can suddenly be buried beneath drifts of dust. Perhaps swallowing all that grit is what gives Billie Jo our strong, endearing, rough cut hero*ine the stoic courage to face the death of her mother after a hideous accident that also leaves her piano playing hands in pain and permanently scarred.

Meanwhile, Billie Jo’s silent, windblown father is literally decaying with grief and skin cancer before her very eyes. When she decides to flee the lingering ghosts and dust of her homestead and jump a train west, she discovers a simple but profound truth about herself and her plight. There are no tight, sentimental endings here just a steady ember of hope that brightens Karen Hesse’s exquisitely written and mournful tale. Hesse won the 1998 Newbery Award for this elegantly crafted, gut wrenching novel, and her fans won’t want to miss The Music of Dolphins or Letters from Rifka. Ages 9 and older Gail Hudson

Just Juice

Letters and numbers don’t make any sense to Juice Faulstich. She’d rather skip school and help her father in his workshop. But when the bank threatens to repossess her family’s home, Juice faces her first life size problem and is determined to find a way out.

The Stowaway

In the summer of 1768, an eleven year old butcher’s apprentice named Nicholas Young climbed aboard a ship, hid himself from captain and crew, and waited to be carried far away from the life he hated in London. Nick didn’t know it, but the ship he chose H.M.S. Endeavour was bound for an astonishing adventure. Captained by James Cook, Endeavour was on a secret mission to discover an unknown continent at the bottom of the globe. During his three year voyage, Nick encountered hardship and was awed by new discoveries; he weathered danger and proved himself brave when disaster struck; he earned the respect and trust of the gentlemen on board; he made a friend for life. And he made history. An eleven year old boy named Nicholas Young really did stow away on Cook’s Endeavour. Based on exhaustive historical research and illustrated with evocative drawings by Robert Andrew Parker, Stowaway is Newbery winner Karen Hesse’s extraordinary fictional account of the real Nicholas’s journey.

Witness

Leanora Sutter. Esther Hirsh. Merlin Van Tornhout. Johnny Reeves…
These characters are among the unforgettable cast inhabiting a small Vermont town in 1924. A town that turns against its own when the Ku Klux Klan moves in. No one is safe, especially the two youngest, twelve year old Leanora, an African American girl, and six year old Esther, who is Jewish. In this story of a community on the brink of disaster, told through the haunting and impassioned voices of its inhabitants, Newbery Award winner Karen Hesse takes readers into the hearts and minds of those who bear Witness.

Aleutian Sparrow

‘Your work, Vera,’ Alfred’s grandfather told me, ‘your work is to know the ways of our people.’ In June of 1942, seven months after attacking Pearl Harbor, the Japanese navy invaded Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. For nine thousand years the Aleut people had lived and thrived on these treeless, windswept lands. Within days of the first attack, the entire native population living west of Unimak Island was gathered up and evacuated to relocation centers in the dense forests of Alaska’s Southeast. With resilience, compassion, and humor the Aleuts responded to the sorrows of upheaval and dislocation. This is Vera’s story, but it is woven from the same fabric as the stories of displaced peoples throughout history. It chronicles the struggle to survive and to keep community and heritage intact despite harsh conditions in an alien environment. In a luminous novel of unrhymed verse, Newbery winner Karen Hesse brings to light this little known episode from America’s past.

Brooklyn Bridge

On that day in 1903, fourteen year old Joseph Michtom’s life changed irrevocably when his parents Russian immigrants created the first teddy bear. No longer did the Michtom s gather family and friends around the kitchen table to talk. No longer was Joseph at leisure to play stickball with the guys. No longer were Joseph and his book loving sister free from watching their pesky two year old brother. Now when it was summer vacation and more than anything Joseph wanted to experience the thrill, the grandeur, the electricity of Coney Island Joseph worked. And complained. And fell in and out of love. And argued. And hoped that everything would go back to how it used to be. All the while no one let him forget that he was lucky.
Because There are other children. The unwanted, the forgotten, the lost ones. They gather under the bridge each night to sit, to talk, to sleep. They know, they know, they know that to everyone beyond the bridge they are invisible…
. These are the children who live under the bridge. The Brooklyn Bridge.
Newbery medalist Karen Hesse masterfully entwines Joseph s coming of age tale and that of his big, colorful family with the heartbreaking stories of the children under the bridge. Riveting historical fiction that is by turns accessible and ornate, very real but with a touch of magical realism. Hesse s extraordinary new novel is an insightful reminder that a life fragile and precious can change in a moment.

What You Wish For: A Book for Darfur

A stellar collection from Newbery medalists and bestselling authors written to benefit Darfuri refugeesWith contributions from some of the best talent writing for children today, What You Wish For is a compelling collection of affecting, inspiring, creepy, and oft times funny short stories and poems all linked by the universal power of a wish the abstract things we all wish for home, family, safety and love. From the exchange of letters between two girls who have never met but are both struggling with the unexpected curves of life, to the stunning sacrifice one dying girl makes for another, to the mermaid who trades her tail for legs, to the boy who unwittingly steals an imp’s house, and to the chilling retelling of Cinderella, What You Wish For brings together a potent international roster of authors of note to remember and celebrate the Darfuri refugees and their incredible story of survival and hope.

Come On, Rain

Newbery Medalist Karen Hesse recreates the body and soul renewing experience of a summer downpour after a sweltering city heat wave. Lyrically written and lovingly illustrated.’ School Library Journal ‘Hesse’s language is a quiet, elegant surge…
. Muth contributes fine watercolor atmospherics.’ Kirkus Reviews

The Cats in Krasinski Square

Newbery medalist Karen Hesse tells a harrowing, true story about life in the Warsaw Ghetto during WWII. When Karen Hesse came upon a short article about cats out foxing the Gestapo at the train station in Warsaw during WWII, she couldn’t get the story out of her mind. The result is this stirring account of a Jewish girl’s involvement in the Resistance. At once terrifying and soulful, this fictional account, borne of meticulous research, is a testament to history and to our passionate will to survive, as only Newbery Medalist Karen Hesse can write it.

Spuds

Newbery medalist Karen Hesse has crafted a heartwarming story set in the backwoods of Maine that glows with integrity, love, and true family values. Ma’s been working so hard, she doesn’t have much left over. So her three kids decide to do some work on their own. In the dark of night, they steal into their rich neighbor’s potato fields in hopes of collecting the strays that have been left to rot. They dig flat bellied in the dirt, hiding from passing cars, and drag a sack of Spuds through the frost back home. But in the light, the sad truth is revealed: their bag is full of stones! Ma is upset when she sees what they’ve done, and makes them set things right. But in a surprise twist, they learned they have helped the farmer contd.

Lavender

When Codie’s favorite aunt is having a baby, Codie has lots of worries: Will the baby and her aunt be all right, will Codie’s baby quilt be done on time, and will her aunt still have time for her?

Sable

Tate is overjoyed when a scrawny mutt turns up in the yard one day. She even persuades Mam and Pap to let her keep Sable, named for her dark, silky fur. But before long, the incorrigible dog begins to cause trouble with the neighbors. Will Sable have to go?

First Light

The story of Hanukkah is the story of triumph of light over darkness, of the small miracles that give hope to an entire people. In a series of eight powerful and evocative free verse poems, award winning author Karen Hesse captures the resilient spirit of the Jewish people through the voices of eight children at Hanukkah. The children from Tamara in 12th century England and Jeremie in 13th century France to Havva in 17th century Turkey and Ori in 20th century Israel have all experienced loss and hardship. But they are united by love, family, and their cherished stone lamp. The stone lamp provides each with comfort and hope, for every time its wicks are lit, the endurance of the Jewish people is re illumined.

The Young Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Anderson was born in the slums of Odense, Denmark. His parents were hardworking, and Hans received little formal education, but his childhood was his opening to the world of folklore and fairy tales. Much of his work depicts characters who gain happiness in life after suffering and conflicts and many of his childhood experiences inspired his most famous tales, such as The Ugly Duckling and The Little Mermaid. In this intimate and gripping biography of one of the world’s greatest storytellers, Karen Hesse and acclaimed artist Erik Blegvad connect Hans’s own experiences

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