Dust to Eat: Drought and Depression in the 1930s
Grade 4-7–Despite its descriptions of dust and drought, this book is anything but dry. While it includes background information on the Great Depression and the Roosevelt administration's response, the text's strength is the very human face it puts on the overwhelming tragedy of the Dust Bowl years. The flowing narrative draws deeply from letters by and interviews with those who lived through this disastrous period, as well as from the work of John Steinbeck and Woody Guthrie. Cooper focuses on the physical struggle to survive, describing the harsh conditions in migrant camps, especially for the children who worked alongside their parents in the fields and often died of disease and malnutrition. The author follows the exodus from the Great Plains to California along Route 66, lacing the narrative with poems and song lyrics from the era. Of particular interest is his discussion of the grassroots effort on the part of native Californians to force the migrants to return to their home states. Archival black-and-white photographs, many taken by Dorothea Lange, grace most pages and illustrate the desperation and despair of the "Okies." Well-documented source notes are provided for each chapter. A good companion work is Jerry Stanley's poignantChildren of the Dust Bowl(Random, 1992).–Joyce Adams Burner, Hillcrest Library, Prairie Village, KSCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.