"I was once told that writing historical fiction was a bad idea," Hesse said in her Newbery acceptance speech, reprinted in
Horn Book. "No market for it. I didn't listen. I love research, love dipping into another time and place, and asking questions in a way that helps me see both the question and answer with a clearer perspective. . . . Often, our lives are so crowded, we need to hold to what is essential and weed out what is not." Reading historical fiction, she continued, "gives us perspective, respite from the bustle of everyday life, and helps us come to grips with the notion that there are not always answers to life's questions. It gives us a safe place in which we can grow, transform, transcend. It helps us understand that sometimes the questions are too hard, that sometimes there are no answers, that sometimes there is only forgiveness."
Childhood Love of Reading
Hesse was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1952, long after the events of which she often writes. She grew up in a row house, and later in an apartment in the Baltimore suburbs. Hesse once described her childhood persona: "Thin and pasty, I looked like I'd drifted in from another world and never quite belonged in this one," she wrote.
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