Kirkpatrick, Katherine (Anne) 1964-

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KIRKPATRICK, Katherine (Anne) 1964-

PERSONAL: Born April 16, 1964, in Huntington, NY; daughter of S. Dale and Audrey (Neumann) Kirkpatrick; married Jonathan F. Tait, June 19, 1999; children: twin daughters. Education: Smith College, B.A., 1986. Politics: "Democrat/liberal." Religion: "Buddhist/Episcopalian." Hobbies and other interests: Kayaking, hiking, inline skating, bicycling, watercolor painting.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Holiday House, Inc., 425 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10017.

CAREER: Writer. Worked in various editorial and rights positions for publishers, including E. P. Dutton/ Dial, Henry Holt, and Four Winds/Macmillan, all New York, NY, between 1987 and 1993; freelance writer for reference books and encyclopedias, 1993–97; creator and performer of school presentations on history, archaeology, and writing, 1997–99; full-time writer, 2000–.

MEMBER: Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.

AWARDS, HONORS: Herman Melville Book Award, for Keeping the Good Light; Keeping the Good Light and Trouble's Daughter: The Story of Susanna Hutchinson, Indian Captive, were selected as New York Public Library "Books for the Teen Age;" Redcoats and Petticoats named a Junior Library Guild selection; New York State Marine Education Association Award.

WRITINGS:

FOR YOUNG READERS

Keeping the Good Light (novel), Delacorte (New York, NY), 1995.

Trouble's Daughter: The Story of Susanna Hutchinson, Indian Captive (novel), Delacorte (New York, NY), 1998.

Redcoats and Petticoats (novel), illustrated by Ronald Himler, Holiday House (New York, NY), 1999.

Voyage of the Continental (novel), Holiday House (New York, NY), 2002.

Escape across the Wide Sea (novel), Holiday House (New York, NY), 2004.

Snow Baby (novel), Holiday House (New York, NY), in press.

Contributor to reference books and encyclopedias.

SIDELIGHTS: Katherine Kirkpatrick is an author of historical fiction for children and young adults. Keeping the Good Light takes place in the year 1903. Eliza Charity Brown, age sixteen, lives with her parents in Stepping Stones Lighthouse on Long Island Sound. Eliza attends school on a nearby City Island and spends her free time fishing for eels. She longs for freedom from the isolation and from her stern Irish mother. After her brother Peter dies, she moves to City Island to live with her married older sister. Eliza loses a teaching job for "unladylike" conduct and faces the choice of either becoming the wife of a man she does not love or returning to the lighthouse. Her salvation from both options comes in the form of an unexpected job offer. "This engaging story presents a lively heroine eager to set out on her journey to adulthood," wrote Mary Romano Marks in Booklist. A Publishers Weekly reviewer noted that Kirkpatrick's extensive research and her "obvious love for her story's setting add up to an engaging read." School Library Journal contributor Carolyn Noah called the plot "engaging," Eliza's personality "vibrant and irresistible," and secondary characters "varied and multidimensional," writing that Keeping the Good Light "is an outstanding book with a truly contemporary heroine in a historical setting."

Trouble's Daughter: The Story of Susanna Hutchinson, Indian Captive, set in the seventeenth century, is based on the true story of Susanna Hutchinson, whose mother, Anne Hutchinson, was persecuted by the Puritans as a heretic. To escape this persecution, the Hutchinson family escapes to the wilderness of the lower Westchester/Bronx region of New York. Soon after the Hutchinsons settle in New York, they are attacked by the Lenape (Delaware) tribe of Native Americans. Nine-year-old Susanna is the only family member to survive the massacre, and the Lenapes hold her hostage. The young girl attempts to escape from the people she initially considers savages and resists learning their language. As time passes, Susanna develops affection for her captors and is torn between her feelings for her biological family and her adopted family. Susanna, known by the Lenape name of Meepahk ("Pretty Leaf"), learns from the Lenape medicine woman Som-kway, and befriends Som-kway's granddaughter, Sa-kat. When Susanna is able to return to members of her extended biological family, she does not wish to leave the Lenape village.

Kirkpatrick studied with Herbert Kraft, an expert on the Lenape, and spent three years researching and writing Trouble's Daughter. Writing in Booklist, Ilene Cooper praised the "rich detail" in the book, concluding that Trouble's Daughter is "a book in which children do more than just view history—they see themselves." A Publishers Weekly reviewer noted that the author "presents a searing portrait of divided loyalties," depicts "a heroine grappling with universal issues," yet ultimately "offers a message of peace and hope." School Library Journal contributor Jennifer A. Fakolt called Trouble's Daughter a "rich and engrossing fictional account of actual events" that uses "a wealth of careful detail and sensitivity." Fakolt concluded that the book is "topnotch historical fiction."

Kirkpatrick based Redcoats and Petticoats on actual events and figures of the Revolutionary War. Nancy Strong of Setauket, New York, sends signals to General George Washington by hanging her petticoats from the clothesline. Patriots like Strong relayed information from British-occupied New York City to patriots in Connecticut, and a map at the end of the book traces these espionage activities. A reviewer writing in Kirkus Reviews commented that "the detailed historical notes" at the end of the book "will intrigue" readers interested in learning about such activities. Contributing to Booklist, Ellen Mandel noted that Redcoats and Petticoats is an "alluring glimpse at a fascinating episode in America's past."

Kirkpatrick told CA: "Redcoats and Petticoats is set on the North Shore of Long Island, New York, where I grew up. Keeping the Good Light and Trouble's Daughter are set in the City Island, Bronx, New York area where I have lived for most of my adult life. Escape across the Wide Sea is set in nearby New Rochelle, New York. All of these books feature Long Island Sound (as seen by rowboat, sailboat, or canoe) and New York State history.

"I moved to Seattle, Washington, in June, 1999. Readers will note that my novel Voyage of the Continental reflects this move from the East Coast to the West Coast. It features a sixteen-year-old girl, Emeline McCullough, one of the 'Mercer Girl' brides, who journeys to Seattle by steamship via Cape Horn in 1866. This young adult novel is told in diary format, and has comic as well as mystery, adventure, and suspense elements.

"Escape across the Wide Sea, a middle-grade novel, tells about the founding of New Rochelle, Westchester, New York. The narrator is Daniel Bonnet, a Huguenot boy whose family escapes from France in 1686, fleeing religious persecution during the bloody reign of King Louis XIV. In the ensuing violence, Daniel is left permanently maimed. Wounded and in pain, he embarks on an uncertain and courageous journey that will last more than two years and take him to Africa and the Caribbean and finally the colony of New York."

"Escape across the Wild Sea was written at the suggestion of a librarian in New Rochelle, who observed that there were no books available for children on the subject of Huguenots. Subsequently I embarked on a five-year research journey, which turned up, among other interesting facts, that La Rochelle, in France, the namesake for New Rochelle, was a port for slave ships. Though slavery was not common in France, it certainly was a large part of the French economy, as all the sugar plantations in the French West Indies depended on slave labor. These facts greatly influenced my novel. What started out as ten pages on a sugar plantation in Guadeloupe became a third of my book and a slave character, Senyabon, became one of the book's main characters.

"The Snow Baby is a children's biography and photographic essay, featuring Marie Peary, daughter of Robert E. Peary, the Arctic explorer.

"Though I still love historical fiction, I also have a few nonfiction projects in the works."