Children of the Dust Bowl: The True Story of the School at Weedpatch Camp
Grade 6 Up-- Stanley has crafted a well-researched, highly readable portrait of the ``Okies'' driven to California by the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s and the formidable hardships they faced. After first detailing the desperation of their lives in the Midwest, he follows them on their trek across the western United States to the promise of work in California, where their hopes were dashed. After providing this thorough, sympathetic context of their plight, he zeroes in on the residents of Weedpatch Camp, one of several farm-labor camps built by the federal government. The remainder of the book is devoted to educator Leo Hart and the role he played in creating a ``federal emergency school.'' Interviews with Hart and the school's former teachers and pupils make Children of the Dust Bowl useful to students of oral history, as well as of the Depression. A thorough index enhances the research value of the book, although it is interesting enough to enjoy for itself. The book is lavishly illustrated with period black-and-white photographs. An informative and inspirational bit of American history. --Joyce Adams Burner, formerly at Spring Hill Middle School, KSCopyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.