Out of the Dust

by Karen Hesse

Book Overview

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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0590371258
• Release Date: September 2009
• Publisher: Scholastic
• Length: 227 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.5" x 0.7" x 5.2"

Customer Reviews

A literary master piece!

Out of the Dust is written in a mix of short lines, long lines, and blank lines that creates a unique rhythmic style and imagery that fits well with the historical dust bowl setting and suffocating tone of the harsh times and personal tragic events. A long-legged red headed girl is born in 1920 and named Billie Jo Kelby, because her father wanted a boy. Fast forward to 1934 when she is 14 and the dust bowl begins its years long brutal attack of hardship interspersed with hopes of rain. Karen's style and tone gives a glimpse of the suffering many endured during these times and the determination, ingenuity, and adaptability required for people, who did stay with the land until better times.

got here before suppose

whenever they need it,it will be here before.

thumbs up

I am a middle school student and I must admit that I loved this book. I loved it a lot because it was in a kid's perspective, not an adult's. I never actually heard of "The Dust Bowl" until this book. Every other book on the Dust Bowl that I came across was in an ADULTS point of view. I had to read "Out of the Dust" for school and I won't lie, i thought that would be just another boring/bad book like always. But it wasn't, i really liked it.. It seemed so real, and I could actually understand what Billie Jo was going through even thought i've never been in something so tragic. I had to give this book the review it disurved. The form it was in was so unique, nothing like any other. It was in a poem form but at the same time like a diary entry. I thought it was really stupied and pointless, but it actually helped me get what was going on in some strange way. I honesty do give this book 5 stars, mayjor thumbs up :)

Dust Bowl Blues

Dust storms predominate in the life of Billy Jo, the fourteen-year-old narrator of Out of the Dust. The economic hardship that Billy Jo's family faces in Oklahoma during the Depression comes out in the beautiful free verse that Billy Jo writes in her journal. As her father stubbornly clings to his belief that "it's sure to rain soon/wheat's sure to grow", her mother grows heavier with child, and their economic woes grow more dismal. Billy Jo's consolation in the face of the desolation is the wonderful dexterity of her fingers on her mother's piano. Then, a horrible accident destroys her family, estranges Billy Jo from her father, and robs her of her piano playing skills. Life becomes unbearable and Billy Jo runs away from home, but a chance meeting makes her realize where her heart lies. The story is bleak as the forces of nature are powerful and the freak accident is terrible but Billy Jo's courageous spirit and the humor in her observations, "I hope we get bonus points/ for testing in a dust storm" prevent it from degenerating into pessimism. The author's technique of using short, economical lines of poetry reflects the frugal times and also creates the historical background to the story in a simple and uncomplicated manner. Out of the Dust is harsh in its realism, but it leaves the reader with a feeling of hope.

What a grate book

Out Of the Dust By, Karen Hesse Review by, SamanthaAs the dust gets thicker Billy Jo tells the story of the life in Oklahoma, While the time of the dust bowl. The genre of OUT OF THE DUST is realistic fiction, made to sound very real by Karen Hesse. Billy Jo her mother and her father all live in a small shack on a farm. Because of the dust the crops were not growing well, they had also not had a heavy rain in over a year. Billy Jo loved the piano and she always played it but after a terrible accident that left her hands and her mother totally burned up and sore she thought that she could never play again. I think that this is a good book for young adults because they might be able to connect in some ways. I personally loved the book and had a really hard time putting it down. I think the reason I liked it so much was that it was something that could really happen. I also liked this book a lot because she made you feel like you were right there watching the story. The Plot of the book was announced really well and the characters descriptions were made very clear and easy to understand.The plot of this book is very good. Because they start out by telling us were the book takes place and who the characters in the story are. They made the book very understandable and readable. The story was telling us about what a 14-year old Girls named Billy JO's life in the years of a drought in Oklahoma. She was saying her parents did not really want her because they wanted a son. While towards the middle of the book the mother of Billy Jo gets pregnant and is going to have a baby boy. But then an accident burns her whole body while she is pregnant.The characters in the book are very descriptive. The main character in the book Billy Jo is described as a tall not so pretty girl with dirty blonde hair. Very dirty skin from the water she bathes in. The mother is tall skinny and when she is pregnant she is described as a normal women only weighing in at 110lbs. The father has some muscles but not many mostly he is skin and bones with also very dirty skin. The other people in the book don't really have descriptions except for one boy not giving a name, he is decried as a short boy with freckles and blonde hair they say he has blue eyes and kind of a pudgy face.This book is about A girl in Oklahoma that is having a hard time living. The people that live there are desperately wanting rain that they have not had for over three years. It is so hard to live because the farms will not grow and the food and water is saturated in dust. I think I personally connected with this book when Billy JO's mother passed away because just last year my father passed away. In addition, when her father got a girlfriend and how she did not like her at first, I was not comfortable with my stepfather at first either. Therefore, I kind of know what Billy JO fells like. I would recommend this book to any young adult or adult that like reading realistic fiction. If you would like to know how

Keeping her spirit

"Out of the Dust," written as a series of spare free-verse poems from the viewpoint of a Texas teenager during the 1930s, won the Newbery Award for 1998. My own reading of the book convinced me that the award was well-deserved.Billie Jo's poems span a period of years filled with difficult experiences: poverty, unemployment, her mother's death in an accident, her own maiming in the same accident, her trouble communicating with her father. Her life is certainly not easy, her path almost never smooth. Yet, the poems radiate such a hope, even a joy at times, that the book never becomes depressing. I think some of the images of this book will stick with me for a long time -- the family chewing their dust-laden milk, her mother's tent of pain, her father's smile at the dance, Billie Jo's first concert after recovering from her burns. Billie Jo is a survivor whose story is both thought-provoking and uplifting.