Witness (Scholastic Gold)

by Karen Hesse

Overview

Newbery Medalist Karen Hesse emerses readers in a small Vermont town in 1924 with this haunting and harrowing tale

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780439272001
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	03/01/2003
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 7.63(h) x (d)
Lexile:	NP (what's this?)
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Karen Hesse is the award-winning and critically acclaimed author of many books for children. Her titles include Witness, The Cats in Krasinski Square, and the Newbery Medal winner Out of the Dust, among many others. She lives in Vermont with her husband and two teenaged daughters.

Interviews

Author Essay
In 1997, while returning from a speaking engagement, I spent the last moments of my flight skimming the airline's complimentary magazine. There I came across a filler about the Ku Klux Klan in Vermont in the 1920s. I read the item, shaking my head in disbelief. "The Klan in Vermont?" I thought. "Couldn't be." Then I did something totally out of character. I removed the article from the magazine and tucked it into my bag.

Back home I wasted no time in attempting to disprove the article, but to my surprise it was correct. The Klan had indeed gained a toehold in Vermont in the 1920s. Maudean Neill had documented it. I bought and read her book, corresponded with her about her research, then tried to imagine how I might take this episode in history and craft a compelling story for young readers. Hitting one dead end after another, I finally tucked the idea into the back corner of my brain and moved on.

Fast forward three years. Jean Feiwel, in search of a new project we might work on together, sent an email with the subject line, "Book Idea?" The message which followed read simply, "Remember Spoon River Anthology?" Suddenly the back corner of my brain flooded with light. I had performed Spoon River in high school. That was it! The path to the Klan project had been there all along, blazed by Edgar Lee Masters.

Over the following months I ferreted out books discussing the Klan in the '20s. I read nonfiction, fiction, plays, short stories, and poetry from and about the period. I drove around Vermont, haunting libraries, poring over microfilm. Altogether I composed over 550 poems in the voices of 13 distinct narrators. Arriving at the end of that "first draft," I culled the unwieldy stack, cutting the book in half. Another 100-plus pages, and two of the original narrators disappeared as revisions progressed.

My gut knotted as I wrote from the point of view of characters whose lives were rooted in bigotry and intolerance. But there were also narrators who made my heart soar. Disabling my censor, allowing each character to speak his or her mind, I have, in Witness, attempted to piece together a mosaic of community giving birth to its conscience. (Karen Hesse)

Editorial Reviews

This lyrical novel powerfully records waves of change and offers insightful glimpses into the hearts of victims, their friends and their enemies.” – Publishers Weekly“Remarkable and powerful . . . a thoughtful look at people and their capacity for love and hate..” – School Library Journal"Add this to the Holocaust curriculum, not because every racial incident means genocide, but because the book will spark discussion about how such a thing can happen even now." Booklist, starred review"What Copeland created with music, and Hopper created with paint, Hesse deftly and unerringly creates with words." — Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

The Barnes & Noble Review
Karen Hesse's Newbery Award-winning skills are put to great use in Witness, a poetic tale about friendship, fanaticism, and the deadly undercurrents of racial prejudice. The story takes place in a small Vermont town in the year 1924, revealing the devastating impact of the Ku Klux Klan on this pastoral, insular community. At the heart of the tale are two motherless girls who come to the attention of the newly formed Klan: 12-year-old Leanora Sutter, who is black, and 6-year-old Esther Hirsch, who is Jewish.

Hesse tells her story, which is based on real events, through the eyes of 11 different characters. Each point of view is expressed in poetic form, but with a stark clarity of difference that makes the voices unique and identifiable. There is a fire-and-brimstone preacher whose sermons reveal him as a zealot and whose actions brand him as a hypocrite. There is a middle-aged farm woman named Sara who takes Esther under her wing despite the warnings of her neighbors, trying to help the child understand why the Klan has marked her and her widowed father as targets for their hatred. Esther's only other friend is Leanora, who is about to learn some harsh lessons on tolerance and hatred herself at the hands of the Klan. And linking them all together is 18-year-old Merlin Van Tornhout, a young man struggling to fit in with the adult world and determine for himself the difference between right and wrong. The remaining characters who circle the periphery of this core group reflect the various mind-sets and biases that were common during this era of fear and persecution, even in a setting as bucolic as the Vermont countryside.

Hesse weaves real historic events into her tale, such as the murder trial of the infamous kidnappers Leopold and Loeb, giving the work a definite period flavor. Using prose that is both sparse and powerful, she builds the tension with a slow crescendo of inevitability that ends in violence, but also offers up an unforgettable lesson on the true power of friendship and acceptance. (Beth Amos)

bn.com

PW wrote in our Best Books citation, "Hesse weaves together 11 distinct narrative voices to create a moving account of the Ku Klux Klan's encroachment on a small Vermont town in 1924. Told completely in verse, her quietly powerful novel addresses the inevitable loss of innocence that accompanies the fight for social justice." Ages 9-12. (Mar.) Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Gr 6 Up-This full cast production greatly enhances and dramatizes Karen Hesse's quietly moving, powerful novel (Scholastic, 2001) about a small town in Vermont after the arrival of the Ku Klux Klan. Set in 1924, the cast of 11 characters tells a story of racism and bigotry based on actual events. As each character speaks, the tale builds like a courtroom drama in which it becomes apparent that the families of 12-year-old Leanora Sutter, an African-American girl, and 6-year-old Esther Hirsh, daughter of a Jewish shoe salesman, are among the victims of Klan activities. Each voice is distinguished by differing opinions and simple language, such as the speech of Leanora and young Esther. Community leaders (a doctor and newspaper editor), adult townspeople who oppose the Klan, and Klan supporters themselves complete the portrait of the town. The presentation concludes with a fascinating interview between historian and critic Leonard Marcus and Karen Hesse in which she discusses her work and how she came to write her latest novel in verse. Pair this powerful novel with Caroline Cooney's Burning Up (Delacorte, 1999) or Virginia Euwer Wolff's Bat 6 (Scholastic, 1998), and watch the sparks fly. What will surely follow is a lively discussion on small town life, hate groups, and prejudice.-Celeste Steward, Contra Costa County Library, Clayton, CA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal

In this stunning piece of little-known American history, Hesse (Stowaway, 2000, etc.) paints small-town Vermont on the brink of self-destruction circa 1924. The narrative poetry format has fitting roots in "The Spoon River Anthology." Eleven characters speak revealingly for themselves to describe a year in which the Ku Klux Klan arrives, seduces many solid citizens, moves from intimidation to threat to violence, and is finally rejected by the tolerant, no-nonsense townsfolk. Central to the story are two children, one an African-American named Leanora, and the other, a Jewish fresh-air child from New York, named Esther. As targets of prejudice, the lives of both are affected by the actions of the KKK: Leanora is the victim of racist remarks and threats, and Esther sees her father shot while she's sitting on his lap. The story is all the more haunting for its exquisite balance of complex and intersecting points of view on gender, ethnicity, politics, religion, and money. The setting is well developed through subtly embedded period details of everyday Vermont life (a broom sale creates a stampede) and incidents of national historical significance (the Leopold and Loeb trial). The voices of each character have a distinct resonance, but the voice of Esther, the moral center of the book, is memorable. It has a unique beauty and style created by Esther's innocent and hopeful way of expression, but revealing of her immigrant roots in New York. This is carefully crafted, with Leanora, who evolves and grows in wisdom and understanding, being given the first and last word. What Copeland created with music, and Hopper created with paint, Hesse deftly and unerringly creates with words: theiconography of Americana, carefully researched, beautifully written, and profoundly honest. (Fiction. 10-14)

Kirkus Reviews