Karen Hesse

Witness is a verse novel of historical fiction written by Karen Hesse in 2001, concentrating on racism in a rural Vermont town in 1924. Voices include those of Leanora Sutter, a 12-year-old African American girl; Esther Hirsh, a 6-year-old girl from New York; Sara Chickering, a quiet spinster farmer; Iris Weaver, a …

The Music of Dolphins, by Karen Hesse, is a children's book that follows the story of Mila, a feral child raised by a pod of dolphins around the Florida Keys and Caribbean. "Mila" is an abbreviated form of the Spanish word milagro, meaning "miracle". The novel uses a narrative structure that parallels Mila's …