Title: Out of the DustAuthor: Karen Hesse
Illustrator:N/A
Genre: Historical Fiction
Subgenre: Chapter Book
Characters: Billie Jo, Averly Wanderdale, Bayard, Polly, Louise
Themes: Depression, Dust Bowl, Family, Resentment, Forgiveness
Awards: Newberry Winner, Scott O'Dell Winner
Publishing Date: 1997
Publishing Company: Scholastic Press
Summary: The book is about a little girl that is growing up during the great Depression in the Oklahoma Dust Bowl. The family is that of a wheat crop farmer and the crops are not producing like they should and so times are stressful for the family. The family consists of Billie Jo, Ma and Pa. Ma is pregnant though with a little boy that pa had been wishing for. There is a terrible accident in the book that changes everything in the families dynamic. Everything just seems to go wrong for all family members from that point on. Then there comes a time in the book where everything starts to become resolved since Ma has passed and so did baby brother. In the end of the book there is a happy ending for Billie Jo and Pa. I would use this book in my classroom for older grades like middle school history classes when they are learning about the great depression or the dust bowl to help the students to really relate to what was going on back then and how it affected children of that time. The students will discover a sense of empathy and they will learn facts of the dust bowl and depression.
No comments:
Post a Comment