Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse

Bibliography:
Hesse, Karen. Out of the Dust. New York: Scholastic Inc. ISBN: 0590371258


Plot Summary:
Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse is about a girl named Billie Jo. It takes place in the 1930's during The Great Depression. Billie Jo in her family are struggling through hard financial times on their farm which is typical for this time period. Billie Jo liked to heard her mother play the piano. Her mother plays the piano beautifully. Her mother's piano playing causes her father's eyes to lighten up, with is something seldom seen by Billie Jo. Billie Jo playing of the piano is not as wonderful as her mother. She played a very different style, with caused her mother to wince when she played. But Billie Jo playing was well liked by her peers. This becomes her faith for getting out of the dust. Her faith and dreams are shattered when a tragedy accident happens. Her mother and unborn sibling are burned to death leaving Billie Jo's hands burned as well. When her hands are burned so are dreams and her faith of getting out of the dust. Eventually Billie Jo leaves the dust only to realize it's the place she should be.



Critical Analysis:

Karen Hesse's book Out of the Dust is written in first person, Billie Jo is personally telling her story. She is the protagonist of the story, who lived in the gritty farmlands of Oklahoma. Hesse writes Billie Jo's story in diary form as a series of free-verse poems. She tells how the dust storms affects her life. The climax is the tragedy of the book. Billie Jo's father careless leaves a bucket of kerosene near the stove, her mother thought it is was water, spills it on the stove making tea. Billie Jo thinks it water also and pours it on her, only to make things worst and burns her hands in the process. Later after giving birth her mother and newborn baby brother die. This accident shatters her dreams and faith leaving her motherless and hopeless. She once played the piano, like her mother. But since the accident her dreams are left faded and untouched. Now her dreams of getting out of the dust are no more. Billie Jo's father is a quiet man. He becomes unreachable after the death of Billie Jo's mother and baby brother. Billie Jo fears that they're both turn into the dust that has covered everything. But finally once she finds her inner strength she hops a train west and get away from the dust and all it has taken from her , only to realize her place is back home. "I can't get out of something that is inside of me." Hesse has many literary qualities use of sentence structure, line break and chapter division. Going back to point of view of first person it is apparent to the audience is young people. This story of a young girl life appeals to other young girls especially. Young female readers can relate to being alone and longing for a cause of hope and faith. Hesse's character Billie Jo gives young readers the hope and faith to keep living. At one point it seems that Billie Jo has lost everything ; her father's love, her mother and baby brother. How can a young girl possible survive through all this and the dust. But she does and in the process learns to forgive herself and her father. Her dreams are not faded for long and at the end she finds enough hope to play the piano again: "I stretch my fingers over the keys and I play." She realizes that '.. hard times aren't only about money, or drought, or dust. Hard times are about losing spirit, and hope, and what happens when dreams dry up."

Review Excerpt(s):

From Publishers Weekly
In a starred review of the 1998 Newbery Medal winner, set during the Depression, PW said, "This intimate novel, written in stanza form, poetically conveys the heat, dust and wind of Oklahoma. With each meticulously arranged entry Hesse paints a vivid picture of her heroine's emotions." Ages 11-13. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Grade 5 Up. After facing loss after loss during the Oklahoma Dust Bowl, Billie Jo begins to reconstruct her life. A triumphant story, eloquently told through prose-poetry. Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Kirkus Reviews Billie Jo tells of her life in Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl: Her mother dies after a gruesome accident caused by her father's leaving a bucket of kerosene near the stove; Billie Jo is partially responsible--fully responsible in the eyes of the community--and sustains injuries that seem to bring to a halt her dreams of playing the piano. Finding a way through her grief is not made easier by her taciturn father, who went on a drinking binge while Billie Joe's mother, not yet dead, begged for water. Told in free-verse poetry of dated entries that span the winter of 1934 to the winter of 1935, this is an unremittingly bleak portrait of one corner of Depression-era life. In Billie Jo, the only character who comes to life, Hesse (The Music of Dolphins, 1996, etc.) presents a hale and determined heroine who confronts unrelenting misery and begins to transcend it. The poem/novel ends with only a trace of hope; there are no pat endings, but a glimpse of beauty wrought from brutal reality. (Fiction. 9-12) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Connections:

• Read other related books and compare and contrast them:
• Ann Turner's Dust for Dinner with illustrations by Robert Barrett (Harper Collins, 1995)
• David Boothe's The Dust Bowl with illustrations by Karen Reczuch (Kids Can Pres, 1997)
• History: study the The Dust Bowl. Use an almanac or search the Internet to research droughts.
• Science: What caused the dust bowl, was it bad farming, freak weather or some of both.