Rachel Van Essen

Rachel writes stories about children learning to do real things with people who love them. She has watched it happen in her own family. A grown-up slows down, a child gets a turn, and before long, a child is growing capable hands in a hands-off world. Those moments are what led her to create the Faithful Hands series.

Farming runs through Rachel’s family, and she has a soft spot for lessons learned while hands are busy. Sometimes that means unloading the dishwasher, cutting vegetables for dinner, fixing a fence, planting a tree, or cleaning up a mess you helped make. She writes for families who want faith and character to be part of everyday life, not just something children hear about.

Rachel and her husband, Jerry, also work with family businesses, helping them get organized so the next generation is not left guessing. That work has found its way into these books more than she ever expected. She has spent years sitting around tables with families talking about what gets passed down and learning that the most important inheritance is rarely just the property.

When she is not writing, working, photographing grandchildren, or turning family memories into yearly photo books, Rachel has been known to find a few other things to learn. She even holds a commercial FAA Part 107 drone pilot certificate, because apparently taking pictures from the ground was not quite enough.

Rachel and Jerry split their time between Minnesota and Texas and have three grown children and eight grandchildren. She believes a Rubik's Cube is a perfectly reasonable thing to teach a grandchild, that children should get a turn with the real tools whenever possible, and that some of the best lessons happen when nobody realizes a lesson is being taught.

"Legacy isn't just what we leave behind. It's who we prepare to carry it forward."