Breathtaking Book Cover: Safekeeping

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Safekeeping

by

Karen Hesse

Book Review: Witness by Karen Hesse

Title: Witness

Author: Karen Hesse

# Of Pages: 161

Publisher: Scholastic

Publication Date: July 5, 2000

Source: Own

Level: Young Adult

Rating: 2 Hearts

Synopsis

(From Amazon.com)

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.

My Verdict

It’s always disappointing when you read one book by an author and absolutely love it and then you read another by them and don’t like it. That is pretty much what happened here. I had just read Out of the Dust the night before and was expecting another great book but instead was very disappointed with what I found.

This is a work of historical fiction about a small town in 1924 and how it affects them when the Ku Klux Klan moves into town. Told in five “acts”, the story unfolds before us through the eyes of eleven different characters, each passage told from a different point-of-view. The cast of characters was just too large and hard to keep track of. There was a cast list in the front of the book with pictures of each character, which was nice but I got sick of flipping back and forth between pages every time I couldn’t remember who someone was.  Needless to say this really hindered me from connecting with any of them.

Another thing I didn’t like about switching between such a large number of characters was that their ages ranged from six to sixty-six so one minute your in the head of a six year old with her innocent thoughts and the next minute your in the head of an adult who’s plotting to poison someone.

I apologize for the really negative review but this book just wasn’t for me. I am still planning to read more of Hesse’s work in hopes they will be more like my first experience with her writing, which was the polar opposite of this one. 

Book Review: Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse

Title: Out of the Dust

Author: Karen Hesse

# Of Pages: 256

Publisher: Scholastic

Publication Date: January 1, 1997

Source: Library

Level: Young Adult

Rating: 5 Hearts

Synopsis

(From Goodreads)

When Billie Jo is just fourteen she must endure heart-wrenching ordeals that no child should have to face. The quiet strength she displays while dealing with unspeakable loss is as surprising as it is inspiring.

Written in free verse, this award-winning story is set in the heart of the Great Depression. It chronicles Oklahoma's staggering dust storms, and the environmental--and emotional--turmoil they leave in their path. An unforgettable tribute to hope and inner strength.

My Verdict

I’ve never had any interest in reading this book. I remember my sister reading it when we were kids but the cover was dull and old looking and I didn’t think it could possibly hold anything in it that I would enjoy. In more recent years, since my love of verse novels, many other verse lovers and authors have talked about how much they love this book, still I hesitated.

I finally decided to look past the boring/ugly cover and read it anyway. Now I can understand what all the fuss was about. Out of the Dust is a well-written, honest look at a young girl’s life during the Great Depression. Broken down by season, the story unfolds over a two-year span and is told in first person narrative by fourteen-year-old Billie Jo.

I picked up this book late one night expecting to read a few pages before bed. Those few pages turned into the whole book. Although it is a rather slow progressing plotline about a family of farmers’ day-to-day life, somehow it kept me enraptured. I think a large part of this was the writing. Hesse writes with an honest, bluntness that is raw, powerful, and emotional.

“But now,

sorrow climbs up our front steps,

big as Texas, and we didn’t even see it coming,

even though it’d been making its way straight for us

all along.”

In conclusion, if there is still anyone out there who has been putting off reading this book, don’t wait any longer, read it!