Hilde Lysiak, Reporter, Author, 10-Year-Old

The first book in the “Hilde Cracks the Case” series opens with 9-year- old Hilde Lysiak outside her local police station in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, following up on a tip about a break-in on Orange Street. If she’s going to break the story in her newspaper, The Orange Street News, she has to investigate using six basic reporting questions: Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?

“In the first chapter, Hilde is doing the exact same thing I did in real life,” said Ms. Lysiak, the now-10year- old reporter.

“Hero Dog” is the first of six books featuring Ms. Lysiak; they draw from her experiences chasing the news in Selinsgrove, where her parents give her a three- kilometer-wide stomping ground. The books, which Ms. Lysiak works on with her father, Matthew Lysiak, include definitions for terms like a “deadline” or a “press pass” and reporting tips like the six questions, which she used to write on her arm in marker so she wouldn’t forget them. Ms. Lysiak’s story has also been optioned by Paramount TV and Anonymous Content for a television series.

Ms. Lysiak’s experiences went viral in April 2016, when she broke a story on a local homicide. A source had tipped her on the incident a few blocks from her home, and after confirming with the police department, she immediately went to the scene, interviewing neighbors. Her reporting meant her article was up hours before other news outlets had even reached the scene. Her story was picked up by The Washington Post and The Guardian, among other outlets.

“I think a lot of adults tell their kids they can do anything, but at the end of the day don’t actually let them do anything,” she said.

Growing up, Ms. Lysiak traveled around the country with her father, a former reporter for The New York Daily News, when he was on assignment.

She began by covering her block, then broadened to the neighbor- hood. Sometimes she gets stories from emailed tips, but mostly she rides around on her bike, asking people if they’ve heard of anything.

Ms. Lysiak started out charging $1 for a year’s subscription and had a few dozen subscribers; now her print circulation is close to 600 — $20 for a yearlong subscription — with hundreds of thousands of online views. Ms. Lysiak uses some of this money to pay her 13-year- old sister, Izzy, $25 a week to be her videographer.

Ms. Lysiak is home-schooled and used to spend all her time reporting. “She’d leave in the morning, and we wouldn’t see her until the afternoon,” Mr. Lysiak said.

She spends her free time making slime, which “I find great joy in,” she said.

People in the town definitely take her seriously now.

“There are a lot of people in town that don’t like her,” Mr. Lysiak said. “They want her writing stories about parades and promoting the town. But no, Hilde wants to report crime and scandal when she finds it.”

In response to her neighbors’ wariness, Ms. Lysiak added, “It makes me think I’m a good journalist.”

Breaking murder stories, then playing with slime.