Cover Image

Out of the dust

by Hesse, Karen,

Format: Print Book 1999
Availability: Available at 1 Library 1 of 2 copies

Available (1)
Location Collection Call #
CLP - Hill District Children's Fiction Collection j PAPERBACK Hesse
Location  CLP - Hill District
 
Collection  Children's Fiction Collection
 
Call Number  j PAPERBACK Hesse
 
 
 
Unavailable (1)
Location Collection Status
Sewickley Public Library Newbery & Caldecott IN TRANSIT
Location  Sewickley Public Library
 
Collection  Newbery & Caldecott
 
Status  IN TRANSIT
 
 

Summary
Acclaimed author Karen Hesse's Newbery Medal-winning novel-in-verse explores the life of fourteen-year-old Billie Jo growing up in the dust bowls of Oklahoma. Out of the Dust joins the Scholastic Gold line, which features award-winning and beloved novels. Includes exclusive bonus content!"Dust piles up like snow across the prairie. . . ."A terrible accident has transformed Billie Jo's life, scarring her inside and out. Her mother is gone. Her father can't talk about it. And the one thing that might make her feel better -- playing the piano -- is impossible with her wounded hands.To make matters worse, dust storms are devastating the family farm and all the farms nearby. While others flee from the dust bowl, Billie Jo is left to find peace in the bleak landscape of Oklahoma -- and in the surprising landscape of her own heart.
Published Reviews
Booklist Review: "Gr. 6^-9. "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. --Susan Dove Lempke"
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Publisher's Weekly Review: "This intimate novel, written in stanza form, poetically conveys the heat, dust and wind of Oklahoma along with the discontent of narrator Billy Jo, a talented pianist growing up during the Depression. Unlike her father, who refuses to abandon his failing farm ("He and the land have a hold on each other"), Billy Jo is eager to "walk my way West/ and make myself to home in that distant place/ of green vines and promise." She wants to become a professional musician and travel across the country. But those dreams end with a tragic fire that takes her mother's life and reduces her own hands to useless, "swollen lumps." Hesse's (The Music of Dolphins) spare prose adroitly traces Billy Jo's journey in and out of darkness. Hesse organizes the book like entries in a diary, chronologically by season. With each meticulously arranged entry she paints a vivid picture of Billy Jo's emotions, ranging from desolation ("I look at Joe and know our future is drying up/ and blowing away with the dust") to longing ("I have a hunger,/ for more than food./ I have a hunger/ bigger than Joyce City") to hope (the farmers, surveying their fields,/ nod their heads as/ the frail stalks revive,/ everyone, everything, grateful for this moment,/ free of the/ weight of dust"). Readers may find their own feelings swaying in beat with the heroine's shifting moods as she approaches her coming-of-age and a state of self-acceptance. Ages 11-13. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved"
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Additional Information
Subjects Dust storms -- Juvenile fiction.
Farm life -- Oklahoma -- Juvenile fiction.
Depressions -- 1929 -- Juvenile fiction.
Poetry -- Juvenile fiction.
Dust storms -- Fiction.
Farm life -- Oklahoma -- Fiction.
Depressions -- 1929 -- Fiction.
Poetry -- Fiction.
Oklahoma -- Juvenile fiction.
Oklahoma -- Fiction.
Publisher New York :Scholastic Inc.,1999
Language English
Notes "Includes After Words, bonus interview, information and interactivity inside"--P. [4] of cover.
Awards Newbery Medal, 1998
Description 227 pages ; 20 cm
ISBN 0590371258
9780590371254
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