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Title: Out of the Dust
Author: Karen Hesse
Reading age: 8 to 12

However Billie Jo still has dreams of a future. Through a series of free verse poems the forlorn voice of fourteen-year-old Billie Jo Kelby takes the reader through grim domestic realities and constant dust storms. Karen Hesse's YA novel narrows the focus of the catastrophic Dust Bowl in the Southwest during the 1930's to a single family living in Oklahoma. Evocative and mournful story of the Great Depression, out of the Dust is a riveting.

On the Road with Arley

Even when the piano has a few keys soured by dust, red-haired girl, and every little crowd
is grateful to hear a rag or two played
on the piano
by a long-legged. . . . . . . Thanks to Arley Wanderdale, i'm earning a little money playing. My place in the world is at the piano. "Here's the way I figure it.

Hesse's voice espouses realism on every page and you can almost taste the grit and dust in your own teeth. On each page you will find yourself completely absorbed in the daily struggle for survival. The starkness of Billie Jo's circumstances immerses the reader deep into a first hand account of the Depression.

"Rules of Dining",

Round comments
on what life would be without dust, exposing neat circles, and flip over our glasses and plates, spread them on our laps, we shake out our napkins.

hesse's words are so powerful that you can see and feel the history and in some cases desperation in words like; however, Therefore some middle grade children may have trouble understanding the depth and meaning of some of the verses. This book does not provide background or history on any of the characters or events like straight prose might require.

" Bare bottomed
over the swept boards
because that is where daddy said it'd be best, barefoot, ma crouched. Born on the kitchen floor, so did I, "As summer wheat came ripe.

It rings true that Billie Joe and her family eats sleeps and drinks dust. Creeps into the bed sheets and ruins Billie Jo's precious piano, ruins the wheat crop, dust clogs the tractor motor. The amount of dust that Billie Jo and her family endure on a daily basis is overwhelming and mind boggling. Not enough jobs. You meet families migrating to California only to find things are just as bad there.

Blankets of Black

Night descended in an instant
and the dust was on us, the sky turned from blue
to black. "We watched as the storm swallowed the light.

Each poem of Hesse's is a work of art giving the people of Billie Jo's small Okalahoma town depth and purpose.