BOOK REVIEW: Out of the Dust

It is a well known secret that some of the best writing out there is done under the classification of Young Adults. Frequently I will pick up a book for a grandchild only to be told, “Grandma, I’ve already read that.” So naturally I keep it for myself. That is how I obtained OUT OF THE DUST by Karen Hesse.

The year is 1934 and the place is Oklahoma. Billie Jo is fourteen as she starts to tell her story. Life is tough, but Billie Jo’s mother has taught her to play the old piano in their living room. Her musical talent gets her some jobs making it possible to bring in some badly needed money.

As the dust storms get worse, life takes a turn for Billie Jo. Her mother and new born child are gone; her father withdraws from her, and she can no longer play her beloved piano.  Her neighbors are leaving their devastated farms and moving West. Billie Jo and her father are left behind to find peace in the bleak countryside and with each other.

This is a book that has been awarded almost every award and medal for youth literature available: the Newberry Medal, the Scott O’Dell Award and the Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year Award, to name just a few. It is easy to see why.

The story is told in free verse. Somehow, verse can be more eloquent and it gives Billy Jo’s descriptions a harsh reality while staying beautifully poetic. Listen as she describes her mother:

In the kitchen she is my ma,
in the barn and the fields she is my daddy’s wife,
but in the parlor Ma is something different.
She isn’t much to look at,
so long and skinny,
her teeth poor,
her dark hair always needing a wash, but
by the time I was four,
I remember being dazzled by her
whenever she played the piano.

OUT OF THE DUST  is a beautiful book. It captures the Dust Bowl of The Grapes of Wrath from the eyes of a young girl. (Not to mention that it reads faster than Steinbeck’s book.) It is a story of a young heroine who has enormous strength, courage, hope, and love. If you have a young reader in your family, get Karen Hesse’s book for them. Just be sure to read it yourself first.