Module 4: Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse

Book Summary: Billie Jo is fifteen years old and lives in Oklahoma during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl. Her father is a farmer and her mother is her friend, protector and sometimes, it feels like, warden. After an accident that Billie Jo is somewhat responsible for, her mother dies. Out of the Dust is told in stark, lyrical poetry from Billie Jo's perspective in how she comes to terms with her mother's death, her father's distance, and finding her place in the world.

APA Citation: Hesse, K. (1997). Out of the dust. New York, NY: Scholastic Press.

Impressions: I absolutely loved Out of the Dust. It was powerful, heart-wrenching, and at times horrific. The accident that kills Billie Jo's mother is one that is shocking and terrible and sets up the rest of Billie Jo's life amidst a drought that affects her father's farm and the larger Dust Bowl of the Oklahoma plains.

Billie Jo is a character that felt real to me. She was strong and broken, young and old, courageous and afraid. The writing brings the speech of the time and location to life. It also helps the reader visually see the loneliness that Billie Jo feels. I found myself reading the book aloud, loving the writing that had me hurting for Billie Jo and her family.

I also loved that it was a historical fiction book for children that was accurate and compelling. The Great Depression and Dust Bowl were vividly depicted in very few words, but it never felt as though Karen Hesse was teaching about the setting and time. It was the backdrop that played a large part in the characters' lives but didn't overtake the story.

It's a book that I'll be adding to my personal library as I'll want to read it again and share it with others.

Professional Review: 

This is the story of 14-year-old Billie Jo Kelby, who tells the hardships of living on her family's wheat farm in the Oklahoma Panhandle during the dust bowl years of the Depression. Billie Jo and her parents are barely making a living as the winds and dust continually destroys their wheat crop. One of the small pleasures in her life is when Billie Jo plays her beloved piano; however, a terrible accident deprives Billie Jo of this pleasure. While cooking breakfast one morning, Billie Jo's pregnant mother mistakes a bucket of kerosene for a bucket of water and catches on fire. Billie Jo wanting to help grabs the bucket and ends up splashing her mother with even more kerosene. Her mother and newborn brother die leaving behind Billie Jo, who has badly burned and scared hands, and her embittered father. No longer able to play her piano and growing ever more distant from her father, Billie Jo catches a train headed west, and realizes that there is no getting out of the dust of Oklahoma or her home. 

Written in free verse, Hesse exquisitely crafts a compelling and gut wrenching novel. The story is grim but the writing is so superb that Billie Jo comes to life with such tremendous courage, spirit, strength, and emotion. The book is organized like a diary with dated entries that span one year from the winter of 1934 to the winter of 1935. The choice of free verse is brilliant and enables the reader to experience both the pains and joys in meticulously worded poetic phrases. This book is a great choice for classrooms involved in journal-writing assignments and could easily be performed as readers' theater because of the almost lyric quality of the prose. It is excellent for discussion, and because Hess has the outstanding ability to weave historical facts into fiction, many of the poems could be used as powerful supplements to history lessons on the 1930's, the Depression or the Dust Bowl.

Ritch, K. G. (2005). [Review of the book Out of the dust by K. Hesse]. Books r4 teens. Retrieved February 15, 2015 from http://www.edb.utexas.edu/resources/booksR4teens/book_reviews/book_reviews.php?book_id=86.

Library Uses: Out of the Dust could be used in a couple of different formats. It could be used in a class or event about poetry, where it could be read aloud or listed as an example book. It could also be part of a class or event about the Dust Bowl and/or Great Depression.