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Karen Hesse: A Life Shaped by Challenge and Choice
“I stood trembling in the dawn, Tovah, gripping your book in my hands to steady myself. I feared
the guards would guess from one look at me what I was hiding.” In the novel Letters from Rifka, Karen
Hesse writes from the perspective of a young Jewish girl who struggles for survival during the Bolshevik
revolution. Although Hesse did not face a devastating war where she had to fight for her life, like Rifka,
Hesse faced challenges and made choices that shaped her future. She found, as a result, that rather than
following a carefully laid plan for her life, each challenge she faced and choice that she made shaped her
future.
Karen Hesse was born as Karen Donald in Baltimore, Maryland, on August 29, 1952. She grew up
in a row house and apartment near the Enoch Pratt Free library, and she loved to read Dr. Seuss and
picture books from an early age. Her fifth grade teacher encouraged her, telling her that she could
become a professional writer one day, and the dream of becoming a writer remained constant
throughout her life. During her childhood, she would accompany her father on collection rounds where
she would meet people who were struggling to put food on the table and pay their bills. Later in life, she
was able to draw on these memories when writing her books about children growing up in difficult
circumstances.
Even with encouragement, motivation, and ideas, the path to writing did not come easily for
Karen. Her parents divorced when she was young, and when her mother remarried, Karen gained a
beautiful stepsister who was a terrific dancer. Envious of the attention her stepsister received, Karen
took to the high school stage with dreams of becoming a theater major in college; however, her high
school grades were poor during her first two years. It was a theater teacher in high school who helped
her get back on track and get into Towson State College (Towson University today). After just two years
of college, her life took a new direction when she dropped out to marry Randy Hesse. Shortly after their
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wedding, he left for the Vietnam War, and she used the time to finish her degree, earning a BA in English
with double minors in Psychology and Anthropology. She had many career dreams, but she never gave
up on the idea of being a published author or working with publications; however, it took more than 30
years before her dream was realized. She worked as waitress, a nanny, a librarian, a personnel officer,
an agricultural laborer, an advertising secretary, a typesetter, a proofreader, a mental-health-care
provider, a substitute teacher, and a book reviewer. While working as a typesetter, she found children’s
books to be very unsatisfying and thought that she could do a better job. In an interview with
Scholastic.com, she states, “I love writing. I can't wait to get to my keyboard every morning.” Although
she claims that young writers are the most challenging, demanding, and rewarding of audiences to write
for, they are her favorite group.
Once her writing career finally took off, Karen Hesse found herself with a steady stream of
writing topics based on her life experiences. She has authored a number of works of historical fiction
which bring history alive for young readers. John Hersey’s book, Hiroshima, had a profound impact on
her life. “It changed my life,” she states, adding that she was impressed by the compassion, dignity, and
humanity of the Japanese people after the devastation of a nuclear bomb. She claims that the book
helped her see the world in a way that she never considered before.
With a new-found desire to share the challenges and choices of young people all over the world,
Karen Hesse drew from her own family history and life experiences to create realistic characters. Hesse's
writing offers a view of historical topics varying from the depression-era dustbowl to World War II, the
Holocaust, and early 20th century issues of racism and bigotry. Letters from Rifka is a book based on her
great aunt’s experiences as a young Jewish girl during the Bolshevik revolution. Out of the Dust was
inspired by a car trip to Colorado where Hesse noted that the wind never ceased and the residents
constantly struggled with their love for the land and their harsh environment. She explains that she used
free verse for the text because the form allows her to capture the grimness and frugality of life. In
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Witness, also written in free verse, she writes about the Klu Klux Klan’s attempt to recruit members from
a 1924 small Vermont town. In The Cats of Krasinski Square, she tells the story of life in the Warsaw
Ghetto during WWII.
Throughout her career Karen Hesse has amassed an impressive list of awards, including a
prestigious Newbery award, the Scott O'Dell Award, and two Christopher awards. In 2002 she also
became the second children's author ever to receive a MacArthur Foundation fellowship for her
exceptional creativity, significant accomplishments that benefit others.
Although Karen Hesse has written more than 21 novels and stories for young adults, her path to
success was not a simple one. Like the speaker in Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” her path
diverged and her life is a result of the challenges she faced and the choices she made along that journey.