Hesse, Karen (1952-…), an American children’s author, gained recognition for her historical novels for young readers. Hesse won the 1998 Newbery Medal for the outstanding children’s book of the year for Out of the Dust (1997). She wrote the novel in free verse, a style of poetry that does not use rhyme. The story’s narrator is Billie Jo Kelby, a 14-year-old girl who describes her family’s life in Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl years of the 1930’s. Many farm families suffered great hardships during the Dust Bowl, when windstorms carried away the topsoil after a long drought on the Great Plains.
Hesse’s other major historical novels are Letters from Rifka (1992), about a Russian Jewish family of the early 1900’s; A Time of Angels (1995), set in 1918 during a deadly epidemic of influenza; The Cats in Krasinski Square (2004), which takes place in Poland’s Warsaw Ghetto in the 1940’s; and Brooklyn Bridge (2008), set in the Brooklyn borough of New York City in 1903. Her other works of fiction include Phoenix Rising (1994), Witness (1995), The Music of Dolphins (1996), Aleutian Sparrow (2003), and Spuds (2008). She has also written picture books for beginning readers.
Karen Levin was born on Aug. 29, 1952, in Baltimore. She married Randy Hesse in 1971, and graduated from the University of Maryland in 1975. She began writing in 1969 but did not finish her first book, Wish on a Unicorn, until 1991. She held various jobs, including those of secretary and proofreader.
