num_pages: 160
description: Like the Oklahoma dust bowl from which she came, 14-year-old narrator Billie Jo writes in sparse, free-floating verse. In this compelling, immediate journal, Billie Jo reveals the grim domestic realities of living during the years of constant dust That hopes--like the crops--blow away in the night like skittering tumbleweeds. That trucks, tractors, even Billie Jo's beloved piano, can suddenly be buried beneath drifts of dust. Perhaps swallowing all that grit is what gives Billie Jo--our strong, endearing, rough-cut heroine--the stoic courage to face the death of her mother after a hideous accident that also leaves her piano-playing hands in pain and permanently scarred. Meanwhile, Billie Jo's silent, windblown father is literally decaying with grief and skin cancer before her very eyes. When she decides to flee the lingering ghosts and dust of her homestead and jump a train west, she discovers a simple but profound truth about herself and her plight. There are no tight, sentimental endings here--just a steady ember of hope that brightens Karen Hesse's exquisitely written and mournful tale. Hesse won the 1998 Newbery Award for this elegantly crafted, gut-wrenching novel, and her fans won't want to miss The Music of Dolphins or Letters from Rifka . (Ages 9 and older) --Gail Hudson
language: English
title: Out of the Dust
titlecomplete: Out of the Dust
characters: Billie Jo
genres: Middle Grade, Historical, Young Adult, Childrens, School, Classics, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Poetry, Read For School
ratings_count: 75498
places: Oklahoma, The United States of America
awards: awardedAt: 883641600000
name: Newbery Medal, awardedAt: 883641600000
name: Scott O'Dell Award, awardedAt: 915177600000
name: Vermont Golden Dome Book Award
publisher: Klett