Billie Jo tells her story of growing up in the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression in narrative poetry. A terrible accident leaves Billie Jo motherless, and she and her father have to cope with guilt and financial difficulties over the years of 1934 and 1935. This historical fiction gives some glimpses of the outside world, referencing Billy Jo's hero President Franklin, for example, but does not overwhelm the story with research details. This is Billie Jo's story, a microcosm of one family, one girl during the Depression. The "novel in verse" style is very appropriate for the more internal, personal focus, ending not with financial success or the beginning of World War 2, but with Billie's own progression as a character as she forgives her father and herself for her mother's death.

Poetry in audio is tough, and this is probably the main reason for my relatively low rating of the book. The narrator, Marika Mashburn, did a fine job of narrating a fifteen-year-old girls thoughts. Though the poetry worked for internalizing the story, however, it masked the time progression. Events that may have been months apart were only a few minutes apart in the telling. I would have been lulled by the more introspective poems and suddenly find something happening externally, which was a little disconcerting. Because not a lot happens outside of Billie Jo's own thoughts and emotions, I would have a tough time successfully recommending this to young teen readers except when the Newbery assignment comes along and I can tell them how short it is. On the other hand, I think this would be a great novel to recommend to adults who wouldn't be put off by the "YA" label. ( )

Billie Jo was a young Oklahoma girl, her family struggling to survive the dust bowl. Her father was a wheat farmer, who hadn’t harvest a good crop in three years, with this years looking worse. Billie Jo’s mother was pregnant with a child that would be the only child other then Billie. The family agonized through dust storms, trying to keep Ma happy so the baby would survive. One day Pa had put a bucket of kerosene on the counter and Ma had through it was water and started coffee with it only to set the stove on fire. She ran to tell Pa, and Billie who was desperate to save the house through the kerosene out the door, onto her mother who had turned to run back in. Billie tried to save her mother by jumping on her to put the fire out. They were both badly burned, Ma died giving birth to a son, who died only hours later. Billie Jo couldn’t forgive herself or her father, and things only got worse. There was no crop in Oklahoma as the droughts continued. Billie Jo decided to go west to find a better life and leave the dust behind. She couldn’t stand being gone and returned home to her father, who had found a new women. Things in Oklahoma began to get better as the rain came and wheat grew.

I liked this book, but it was very sad. I think that children would enjoy that this book gives a good look at the lives of the people that lived through the dust bowl and what they actually went through. This could be difficult to read for some, because the book is written in varying stanzas. I enjoyed the way that the book was written, and felt a part of Billie Jo’s world while I was reading it.

1.) Class will discuss the hardships that American’s went through during the Great Depression as well as the dust bowl, as well as discuss what would happen if a massive drought came again.
2.) Students will get into groups and create posters illustrating what Oklahoma would have looked like during the dust bowl in the 1930’s.

This book is about a dad and daughter who need a happy ending with their life because their mom and new born brother died.If you like sad books with a happy ending this book is for you! I liked because i like books that are sad with a happy ending! ( )

Though it is a heavy read, it shows the roughness of the dust bowl era. It shows how people really lived what what they might have suffered. ( )

This is a very good example of historical fiction. Billie Jo is a teenager during the Great Depression and goes through lots of trials with her family including losing her mother, suffering burns in the same accident that killed her mom, being estranged from her father, not being able to play the piano after her accident, along with countless other trials during the Depression. She writes in free-verse throughout the book and shares her story in a way that brings the Depression and hardships to life for children from a different generation. ( )