Showing results by author "Karen Hesse" in All Categories

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 ocean home.

In 1767, 11-year-old Nicholas Young stowed away on Captain James Cook's "Endeavour". Cook's three-year mission was secret: he was charged by the British Navy to search for a lost continent, believed to be located between the southern tip of South America and New Zealand. Young's journal charts the voyage and with every port of call a new adventure awaits. This is the story of a great voyage of discovery seen through the eyes of a boy who was actually there.

Billie Jo has a great deal to forgive: Her father for causing the accident that killed her mother; her mother for leaving when Billie Jo needed her most; and herself for being the cause of her own sorrow. Daddy's too wrung out to help her, and there's no one else to care. So at 14, Billie Jo must heal herself - even if it means tearing up her roots and leaving behind everything she's ever known.

Leanora Sutter, Esther Hirsh, Merlin Van Tornhout and Johnny Reeves are among the unforgettable cast inhabiting a small Vermont town in 1924. It's a town that turns against its own when the Ku Klux Klan moves in. No one is safe, especially the two youngest: 12-year old Leanora, an African-American girl, and six-year old Esther, who is Jewish.

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.

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.

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.

Vera, a young Aleut girl who lives with an elderly couple on a larger island so she can attend school, returns home for the summer of 1942 to visit her mother and friends. But when the Japanese launch an air attack on the Aleutian Islands, the US government reacts by "evacuating" most of the Aleut population. Vera and her village are forced to leave their small island of Kashega and spend the rest of the war in internment camps, facing sickness, suffer, and death.

Newbery Medalist Karen Hesse recreates the body and soul-renewing experience of a summer downpour after a sweltering city heat wave. Tess knows that the only thing that can fix the endless summer heat is a good, soaking rainstorm. When it finally comes, there is shouting and dancing as everyone and everything springs back to life.

Radley's parents had warned her that all hell would break loose if the American People's Party took power. And now, with the president assassinated and the government cracking down on citizens, the news is filled with images of vigilante groups, frenzied looting, and police raids. It seems as if all hell has broken loose. Coming back from volunteering abroad, Radley just wants to get home to Vermont, and the comfort and safety of her parents. Travel restrictions and delays are worse than ever, and by the time Radley's plane lands in New Hampshire, she's been traveling for over 24 hours.

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 jeopardize her newfound luck - even if it means telling her own sister to believe something that can’t possibly be true.