Rating: 
Summary: timeless
Review: I read this book about three years ago, and the impact I had the minute I was done with it has stayed the same. And I mean WOW. I've been wowed by just a few books so far in my life, and I can most definately say this is one of them. It's a beautiful, heartbraking story written in a straight, blunt manner. I believe it can appeal to anyone, young or old, and so on. It's written in stanzas (poetry format, however you want to call it), and I really dislike that type of writing, but that's the thing about this book, it has so much power, that can get to anyone.This book is just incredible and draws you in from the moment you open it up.
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Summary: I love this book !
Review: The book Out of the Dust, by Karen Hesse, is a fabulously written book. In this book there is a named Mary Joe, who lives with her hard working father and her pregnant mother in a small town during the Depression. This book is very realistic and has very descriptive writing. This little girl is a strong-willed tom-boy who is very close to her mother. During the book the family goes through very painful events and lose part of the broken family.This book is sad, but is an amazing story. It was very inspiring to me and the ending is unexspected. However if you don't like depressing stories don't read this book. If you like Karen Hesse, or realistic, heartfelt stories this book is for you. This book is fantastic!
Rating: 
Summary: Boring and Depressing Struggles and Hardships
Review: Out of the Dust, by Karen Hesse, is a 2 star book.Out of the Dust is about a family living in Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl in the 1930s and their struggles and hardships. Their wheat is not growing and they need the money. To begin with, Out of the Dust is depressing. The largest event that happens is when Daddy puts a pail of kerosene by the stove. Ma thinks that it is a pail of water and lifts it to make coffee for Daddy. It catches on fire and Ma runs out to get Daddy. After Ma runs out, Billie Jo (the main character) picks up the pail and throws it outside. It hits Ma and she catches on fire. As the book says, "Ma got burned bad." This sets the stage for the whole story. As you can see, Out of the Dust is depressing, but it does teach you a lot about the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. Furthermore, Out of the Dust is boring. It goes by quick though because it is written as a lot of free verse poems that sort of act as "chapters." I was glad when I was finished. I would recommend this book to middle schoolers, although I did not like it very much, because younger students would not have the attention span for such a boring book. It is especially boring to me because I do not like poems, especially ones that do not have a certain format or do not rhyme. If you just need something to read though, Out of the Dust is not a bad choice. For the reasons above, Out of the Dust is a 2 star book.
Rating:
Summary: Boring Struggles and Hardships
Review: The book Out of the Dust is about a family living in Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl in the 1930s and their struggles and hardships. Their wheat is not growing and they need the money. The largest event that happens is when Daddy puts a pail of kerosene by the stove. Ma thinks that it is a pail of water and lifts it to make coffee for Daddy. It catches on fire and Ma runs out to get Daddy. After Ma runs out, Billie Jo (the main character) picks the pail up and throws it outside. It hits Ma and she catches fire. Both Billie Jo and Ma get burned. That sets the stage for the whole story. To me, Out of the Dust is boring. It goes by quick though because it is written as a lot of free verse poems that sort of act as "chapters." I was ready to finish when I was done. It is depressing to read a book like this, but it did teach me a lot about the Dust Bowl. I would recommend it to middle schoolers, although I didn't really like it that much, because younger students wouldn't have an attention span as long as older ones. If you just need something to read, Out of the Dust would not be a bad choice though, but I would not read it again.
Rating: 
Summary: Great book
Review: It was a great book, and it was one of my favorite books I have ever read. It also taught you alot about overcoming adversity. The only bad thing about the book was all the people that had died. But I still loved the book and it was also interesting to see how a family would live in the Dust Bowl, and the family facing many problems like money, and Billie Jo's mom and Franklin dying. I also liked the ending how her dad met Louise and they stayed in the dust despite the money trouble and the constant dust storms. If you like books that are sad, but have a good ending you should read this book
Rating: 
Summary: out of the dust book review
Review: Though I didnt like this book very much, I still had a favorite poem in the book. It was called "The Accident." In this poem Billy Jo's Father leaves a bucket of kerosine by the stove. Mistaking it for water Billys mother begins to make coffe with it when it bursts into flames. Billys mother runs out of the house, but Billy runs back in to save their house from burning to dust. Billy grabs the bucket of kerosine and throws it out the door not knowing her mother was right there. Billy and her mother get burned very badly. I liked this poem because it was an important part of the book, and it reflected on anything Billy was able to do and able not to do through out the rest of the book. I also liked this poem because it was one of the few areas in the book that kept me interested in reading and occupied.
I poetic device that I found in alot of her poems were stanzas. I liked how she used stanzas in her poems because it kept everything neat and organized. And without them everything would be packed into one area. Another device she used alot was free-verse. I liked the way she wrote almost everything in free-verse because if everything ryhmed or whatever, it would have been harder to stay focused. But I also think that if she had put a little rhyming or something into her poems it would have made them a little more interesting.
I think this book would be age appropriate for kids in grades 6 through 9. I think this because it is at like a 6 grade reading level. But then I think you need to have a big attention span, so the ninth graders might enjoy it alittle more than the 6th graders. I am in 8th grade and I found it as a harder read JUST because nothing too interesting was happening and it was very slow going. So thats why 9th graders would probably enjoy reading it more than 6th graders.
Overall, I disliked this book. I disliked it because, It was slow going and boring. Nothing too exciting happened. If there were more high exciting and important parts in the book, I may have liked it better.But the poem format threw me off track too, I am not used to reading things in poem format and it made it harder for me to focus and read.
Rating:
Summary: Not a real good book
Review: Out of the Dust is a very sad story. It is about a girl named Billie Jo living in the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression. Not only is that sad, but her mother dies in an accident. Also the accident feels as though it is her fault.
The poem that I enjoyed the most the most was "Met". "Met" seems to signal the end of the end of the book, and you know that nothing else is going to go wrong. It shows that the storm is over and she is recovering from the emotional trauma. It also shows that she is going to be part of her dad's life. She is almost meeting her father for the first time since the accident.
The book is appropriate for 5th and 6th graders. At this age, they would be able to understand the way the book is written in poetry form. But if someone older reads it I think they will find the book boring because it is written in simple terms. The story line also is very simple. Someone younger might also be able to read it because of the simple language but they would not be able to understand the subject matter as well as 5th or 6th graders. I don't think children younger then 5th grade could deal with the death and sadness in this book.
I really appreciate the way the author writes in free verse. It allows her to better express herself. It also gives the readers a chance to figure out how Billie Jo is feeling and to use their imagination more in the story. Because it is in free verse it as well makes it a good book to read out loud.
Overall I did not enjoy this book. Nothing really happened. I could not really relate to Billie Jo. About halfway though the book you know she is going to recover from her mother's death, since you could not end a book that way. The first three sections were really good, but after that there is no plot. It was a boring book.
Rating:
Summary: Out of the Dust
Review: Out of the Dust is about the Oklahoma dust bowl,and how Billy Jo and her family had to do to survive threw it.Billy Jo is a only child and soon to have a brother until a terrible accident happend.The terrible accident was that mom died giving birth to Franklin the soon to be baby brother.Most of the people in the community blamed it on Billy Jo because she spilt the kerosine on mom wich caused mom to get sick.In the inside Billy Jo new it wasent her fault and that she couldent do anything to help because her hands were so burnt that she couldent give mom water and the whole time she was trying to help, Billy Jo's dad was out getting drunk.I personaly liked the book and i think the age group for thise book would be 11 years of age and pluse.
Rating:
Summary: Out of the Dust an Okay Book
Review: My favorite poem in the book is "Midnight Truth". The reason it is my favorite is because it basically sums up the whole book in one poem. It would be a good thing to put on the back of the book because it gives a good general summary of the book, without giving the whole book away. It talks about her losing her mother, and how she could have loved her more. About how her father no longer talks much to her and doesn't understand her. How the dust has affected there lives so much. It also talks about her father digging his own grave. That's what the books main points are, so that's why I think it sums up the whole book.
I thought for my self the book was an easy read, and I don't read all that often. It's probably easy enough for advanced forth graders and almost all fifth graders. Anyone could read the book, but it's probably almost to easy for the adults so they might not enjoy it because of that. There aren't any really hard words that if you looked up you wouldn't understand. I think the book was an easy read and recommend it for fifth graders to highschool people.
The book is set up in poem form. It doesn't have rhyming in it. I did find some metaphors. When the train was coming it she was saying how the train sounded like knifes hitting together. I thought the poem set up made the book go by faster because it seems like your reading so much more when your not there just in poem form. I think the metaphor made the book more interesting, because it sort of caught your attention.
Overall the book was ok. It sort of gives you an outlook of how bad people had it. I wouldn't recommend it to people who have trouble getting into books unless they are interesting in the starting. If you don't mind waiting for the book to liven up till the end then it's an ok book, but if you have trouble getting into books I don't recommend it. I didn't enjoy the book overall that much, but some parts of it were good. It's interesting to take an interesting look at what people had to go threw then though.
Rating:
Summary: Out Of The Dust
Review: Out Of The Dust, December 9, 2002
Reviewer:a 13 year old reader
Out Of The Dust was a very interesting book. My favorite chapter was summer, because it was really important chapter. It the chapter where mom dies giving birth to Franklin.
I think you should at least be 10 years old to read this book. There are a few big word and it sort of confusing. But it is a really god book for 10 and up.
There is a lot of imagery in this book. One example of imagery is when she wake up and says there is a dust outline of her head. That gave me chills just thinking about it, ahhh.
I gave it 2-5 stars because I am not a big poetry fan but it was an all right book. It had a good story line and lot of personalities.
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