Susquehanna Stories: Meet a Central PA mom who wrote a children’s book about the Susquehanna.

• Karen Hendricks/WITF
  BioRecent Stories

  

  Karen Hendricks hosts WITF’s Morning Edition, heard weekdays from 5-9am. She enjoys navigating the news of the day with listeners, weaving together WITF’s compelling regional coverage with NPR’s unbiased reporting from around the globe—while simultaneously being a reliable, friendly voice as your morning companion.
  
  Karen is an award-winning, lifelong journalist. Her work has garnered more than 20 state and national journalism awards. Her true passion is bringing stories of everyday heroes to light: Her story about a weekend warrior pulling trash out of the Susquehanna River, for the York Daily Record, earned a national first-place award from the Society for Features Journalism.
  
  A Philadelphia-area native and Lock Haven University graduate, Karen has called Central Pennsylvania home for 30+ years. She’s worked for media outlets throughout the Mid-Atlantic Region and Central Pennsylvania, including Harrisburg, Lancaster, York and Gettysburg.
  
  She considers her family and three adult children her brightest, best accomplishments. She and her husband enjoy exploring our national and state parks. She’s writing a memoir about running 50 races to benefit 50 causes when she was 50.

Good Morning Susquehanna book, by Alyssa Maddalen

Alyssa Maddalena

Saying “Good morning” to the Susquehanna River became a ritual that Central Pa. mom Alyssa Maddalena shared with her young daughter. But she now shares this tradition with a bigger audience through her children’s book “Good Morning, Susquehanna.”

Maddalena, from the Danville area, shares the serendipitous story explaining how she connected with the book’s illustrator, Lisa Madenspacher of Columbia, and why she’s donating partial proceeds from the book to the Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association.

We also touch on: how the river, through her book, is connecting new generations to concepts of river conservation and nature.

For more information, see https://alyssamaddalena.com/.

Susquehanna Scout, hosted by journalist Karen Hendricks, is a weekly podcast by WITF that explores the Susquehanna River and its ripple effects across Pennsylvania and beyond.