Karen Hesse has 8 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 8 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4★ across 1 ratings. The most-rated is Out of the Dust.
Out of the Dust
Summary
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.
©1997 Karen Hesse (P)2008 Random House, Inc.
Brooklyn Bridge
Summary
On that day in 1903, 14-year-old Joseph Michtom's life changed irrevocably when his parents - Russian immigrants - created the first teddy bear. 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. And complained. And fell in and out of love. And argued. And hoped that everything would go back to how it used to be. All the while no one let him forget that he was lucky. Because - "There are other children. The unwanted, the forgotten, the lost ones. They gather under the bridge each night to sit, to talk, to sleep. They know, they know, they know that to everyone beyond the bridge they are invisible...." These are the children who live under the bridge. The Brooklyn Bridge. Newbery medalist Karen Hesse masterfully entwines Joseph's coming-of-age tale (and that of his big, colorful family) with the heartbreaking stories of the children under the bridge. Riveting historical fiction that is by turns accessible and ornate, very real but with a touch of magical realism. Hesse's extraordinary new work is an insightful reminder that a life - fragile and precious - can change in a moment. Brooklyn Bridge is a 2009 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.
©2008 Karen Hesse (P)2008 Macmillan Audio
Come On, Rain
Summary
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.
©1999 Scholastic (P)2003 Weston Woods
Witness
Summary
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. (A full-cast recording.)
©2012 Karen Hesse (P)2012 Listening Library
The Music of Dolphins
Summary
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.
©1998 Karen Hesse (P)2009 Listening Library
Aleutian Sparrow
Summary
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.
©2003 Karen Hesse (P)2018 Listening Library
Stowaway
Summary
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.
©2002 Karen Hesse (P)2012 Listening Library
Letters from Rifka
Summary
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. Strong-hearted and determined, Rifka must endure a great deal: humiliating examinations by doctors and soldiers, deadly typhus, separation from all she has ever known and loved, murderous storms at sea, detainment on Ellis Island - and is if this is not enough, the loss of her glorious golden hair. Based on a true story from the author's family, Letters from Rifka presents a real-life heroine with an uncommon courage and unsinkable spirit.
©1992 Karen Hesse (P)2010 Brilliance Audio, Inc.