WITNESS

1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hesse, Karen. 2001. Witness. New York: Scholastic. ISBN 0439271991

2. PLOT SUMMARY
Witness centers around a Vermont town in 1924 when the Ku Klux Klan moves into town and threatens the peaceful existence of the eleven main characters. Readers are brought back in time to a place where racial tensions were high and families were harmed. Community members clashed against each other in a struggle to figure out what was right and moral and readers are able to connect with each character as they tell the story though voice of individual poems.

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Witness is an amazing story that allows readers to delve deeper into the emotions of all those affected by the Ku Klux Klan. Through the free-verse poems of eleven different characters, who are introduced to us through pictures and labels at the front of the book, Hesse is able to capture many different personalities and the internal turmoil that they are all going through. After reading through several poems, it becomes easier to see the similar style used each time a character is speaking. However, the voice of Esther Hirsh is harder to read at times and takes a while to get used to because of the use of unconventional English: “daddy did say he would sit at the table he would sit at the table and not have sleeps…daddy did say nobody not anybody not even klan is hurting little girls.” Readers who have never read a verse novel will enjoy the easy style of this book.

4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S)
Starred Review in BOOKLIST: "The voices personalize the history and reveal how events felt to different people."
SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL review: “The small details seem just right, and demonstrate that this is much more than a social tract. It's a thoughtful look at people and their capacity for love and hate.”

5. CONNECTIONS
Do a Reader’s Theater and assign readers the part of a specific student to read.

Have readers continue the story in their own poems

Read this book when studying the Ku Klux Klan and the Civil Rights Movement

Other books by Karen Hesse:
Hesse, Karen. Out Of The Dust. ISBN 0590371258
Hesse, Karen. Aleutian Sparrow. ISBN 1416903275
Hesse, Karen. A Time of Angels. ISBN 1423115732