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Loading... Out of the Dustby Karen Hesse
The poetic narration of Out of the Dust exquisitely captures the crippling impact of the severe drought and over-farming that caused the 1930s Dust Bowl and the devastation - both agricultural and human - that went along with it. Billie Jo's warring dreams of escape to a dustless land against her father's stubborn belief that crops would one day grow again create a convincing picture of the life that those who stayed behind experienced. Each page is filled with emotion, from childish innocence and hope through heartbreak and grief and back again to hope as a testament of the human will to survive. 3Q2P. "Out of the Dust" follows the life of a young girl, Billie Jo, in the Oklahoma dust bowl of the 1930's. Author Karen Hesse tells this story by using dated entries to follow Billie Jo's life in free verse poetry. I imagine this book would have been more tragic and uplifting in paper format, as the audibook I listened to (narrated by Marika Mashburn) was kind of hokey and over the top. I know this is probably close to how someone like Billie Jo would have actually talked, but it was distracting at best and off putting at worst to keep hearing things like, "Daisies as beautiful as Ma's cornbread was sweet." in that twange. I did think the general plot and small town politics of the book were interesting so I gave it a 3 in quality. This probably would have been higher if I had just read "Out of the Dust". I gave this novel a 2 in popularity because I can think of several other books about the dust bowl that I would recommend before it. novel in verse of the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma. Billie Jean must learn to forgive herself and her father after an accident kills her mother and baby brother. This is a story of a young girl during the Great Depression in Oklahoma. It is a great book for any reader from 4th grade through 8th. I would use this book to teach poetry and American history.
Claire Rosser (KLIATT Review, March 1999 (Vol. 33, No. 2)) This novel has won just about all the possible prizes, including the Newbery Medal, so most of you must already know about it. This trade paperback edition is sturdy, with a picture of Billie Jo in a straw hat on the cover. It should hold up well for classroom use, which is a certainty. The story of tragedy, despair, and finally hope is told in poetry form, with Billie Jo as the youthful narrator, her story unfolding in chapters. The story begins as Billie Jo is 14 years old, with her parents barely eking out an existence in dust-choked Oklahoma in the 1930s. Her mother is pregnant, her father works stubbornly on their failing farm, and Billie Jo gets some joy out of playing the piano and earning some money. This life seems grim, but it gets even grimmer when an accident scars Billie Jo's hands and causes her mother's death. How she recovers from the pain and the guilt, and how she and her father remain on the farm, with the dust ever thicker, smothering them, is the struggle of the story. Students will be fascinated that Hesse tells this gripping, emotional story through poetry; and the form will inspire them and their teachers to explore poetry in their own storytelling. KLIATT Codes: J*--Exceptional book, recommended for junior high school students. 1997, Scholastic Apple/Signature, 227p. 20cm, $4.99. Ages 13 to 15. Susan Dove Lempke (Booklist, October 1, 1997 (Vol. 94, No. 3)) Daddy came in, / he sat across from Ma and blew his nose. / Mud streamed out. / He coughed and spit out / mud. / If he had cried, / his tears would have been mud too, / but he didn't cry. / And neither did Ma." This is life in the Oklahoma dust bowl in the mid-1930s. Billie Jo and her parents barely eke out a living from the land, as her father refuses to plant anything but wheat, and the winds and dust destroy the crop time after time. Playing the piano provides some solace, but there is no comfort to be had once Billie Jo's pregnant mother mistakes a bucket of kerosene for a bucket of water and dies, leaving a husband who withdraws even further and an adolescent daughter with terribly burned hands. The story is bleak, but Hesse's writing transcends the gloom and transforms it into a powerfully compelling tale of a girl with enormous strength, courage, and love. The entire novel is written in very readable blank verse, a superb choice for bringing out the exquisite agony and delight to be found in such a difficult period lived by such a vibrant character. It also spares the reader the trouble of wading through pages of distressing text, distilling all the experiences into brief, acutely observed phrases. This is an excellent book for discussion, and many of the poems stand alone sufficiently to be used as powerful supplements to a history lesson. Category: Older Readers. 1997, Scholastic, $15.95. Gr. 6-9.
References to this work on external resources.
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Meanwhile, Billie Jo's silent, windblown father is literally decaying with grief and skin cancer before her very eyes. When she decides to flee the lingering ghosts and dust of her homestead and jump a train west, she discovers a simple but profound truth about herself and her plight. There are no tight, sentimental endings here--just a steady ember of hope that brightens Karen Hesse's exquisitely written and mournful tale. Hesse won the 1998 Newbery Award for this elegantly crafted, gut-wrenching novel, and her fans won't want to miss The Music of Dolphins or Letters from Rifka. (Ages 9 and older) --Gail Hudson
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 27 Aug 2010 15:42:59 -0400)
In a series of poems, fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships of living on her family's wheat farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl years of the Depression.
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I enjoyed the free verse, it flowed pretty well and told a good story. I do have to say that this was a very tough and tragic story. A few of the reviews I read said that the story is too depressing for teens, and the redemptive part of the story does not outweigh the hardship. Personally I feel like teens are pretty good at dealing with tragedy and that the story would benefit. If nothing else it will help most teens remember that their problems are not as bad as some of the others. (