Poetry 5603

BOOK REVIEW
OUT OF THE DUST

1. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hesse, Karen. OUT OF THE DUST New York : Scholastic,
1997. IL 5-8 ISBN 0590360809

2. PLOT SUMMARY
Karen Hesee Newbery Award Medal and Scott O'Dell’s Historical Fiction Award is a novel written in verse poem about the natural ecological disaster due to the misuse of harvesting land and erosion that leaves the farming landing community in poverty and oppressed in this hot, poor, and suffocating place. Billie Joe the 14-year old girl struggles with the daily suffocating clouds of dust blowing day after day, the lose of her mother in a careless fire accident that claimed Billie Joe’s mother and baby brother’s life, and the silence between she and her father after Billie Jo’s mother dies. Billie Joe’s only joy of playing the piano comes to a long stop because she cannot play the piano anymore due to the damage done to her hands in the accident.
This poignant novel tells about lose of friends as they move west in hopes of better life away from the 1930’s Depression and the Dust Ball. Billie Jo’s father has cancer tumors on his skin and Billie Jo asks the doctor for help on her hands. The doctor comments “They’ll heal up fine if you just use them.” Billie Jo listens to his advice. “And I’ve/been playing/a half hour/every day,/making the skin stretch,/making the scars stretch.” This is how the story begins to end by Billie Jo and her father healing as a whole in every way use of her hands by playing the piano again even it is painful. This determined and resilient 14-year-old girl endures the pain and succeeds at playing the piano again.
Things finally begin to get better as her father meets a woman and forms a relationship with her and it begins to rain. This is definitely historical fiction that informs the reader about the struggles people endured during this time periods. It shows how hope and determination like that of a young teenager overcame anger and blame toward her father that could have abandoned her but decided to stay with her. Billie Jo runs away, and spends a lot of time thinking about what happened to her family. She even discusses her father with a male stranger she meets in the train. “I told him about my father,/and how the thing that scared us both the most/was being left alone./ And now I’d gone and left him.” She realizes that she needs to go back home to her father because this place is what made her what she is and she cannot turn her back on her father.


3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
This Newbery Winner realistic novel OUT OF THE DUST written in free verse is grim, creates melancholy, heart wrenching, and gives hope to readers about overcoming many obstacles in life. This narrative is organized like a diary which makes it more real with dated entries from the winter of 1934 to winter 1935. Karen Hesse adds a title to each poem according to Billie Jo’s life circumstances at that time. This enables the reader to bring the character to life with courage, emotion, strong spirit, and determination.
This novel is a page turner and it brings clear images of the dry and violent dust ball storms, barren, and unfertile Oklahoma terrain full of despair, silence, blame, anger, and poverty to immerse and engage the reader in this compelling story of suffering, resilience, and overcoming obstacles.

Billie Jo shares with the reader her thoughts about the dust when she says, “I sensed it before I knew it was coming /I heard it,/smelled it,/tasted it./Dust.” Adults and children who read this book of poetry will be able to feel and see the resilience of the people who lived through the 1930’s Depression and Dust Bowl in Central Unites States. Karen Hesse’s vivid language in her poetry novel OUT OF THE DUST makes the reader feel the hapless and suffocating environment as a whole. The dust is clung to Billie Jo; it does not stop or let go. “While we sat/taking our six-weeks test, /the wind rose/and the sand blew/right through the cracks in the schoolhouse wall....”

The vivid description of the accident that ends the life of Billie Jo’s mother and baby brother is brief but powerful because of the impact it had on Billie Jo and her father is felt throughout the rest of the story. These feelings are about blame, anger, and forgiveness like when she says, As she opens up to Daddy, she begins to forgive him—and herself. “As we walk together,/side by side,/in the swell of dust,/I am forgiving him, step by step,/for the pail of kerosene./ Billie Jo had to come to terms with herself admitting the anger and blame toward her father and herself propelled her to move forward away from those feelings and made peace with her father and herself. Even though this is a novel, it is difficult to pinpoint a climax in the story because it has the daily struggle of survival on verse poems and diary form where humans fight humans overcoming nature. This novel lands itself too many different teaching topics. They can range from diary writing, poetry, history, and fifth grade earth science.





4. REVIEW EXCERPTS
Booklist, starred review- "A powerfully compelling tale of a girl with enormous strength, courage, and love."

Publishers Weekly, starred review- "Readers may find their own feelings swaying in beat with the heroine's shifting moods."

School Library Journal, starred review- "Free-verse poems allow the narrator to speak for herself much more eloquently that would be possible in standard prose."
5. CONNECTIONS
Out of the Dust should be used as a classroom read aloud for older children and young adults. The thematic elements include the Great Depression, the Dust Bowls of the 1930's, losing a parent, and of free verse poetry.
Other books and stories to use when studying Out of the Dust:
A Guide for Using Out of the Dust in the Classroom by Sarah Clark, 2004
Out of the Dust (Literature Circle Guides, Grades 4-8, by Tara McCarthy, 2003
Children of the Dust Bowl: The True Story of the School at Weedpatch Camp by Jerry Stanley, 1993