Rating: 
Summary: Out of the Dust
Review: Out of the Dust is only an okay a book. People might say it is the best book they have ever read, but I have to disagree. The book is not average in anyway; it is no better than any other book I have ever read. The style is the only thing that sticks out about it from other books, and that style is just confusing, and pointless. The book has good ideas about the difficulties of the Dust Bowl, but so do other authors. Billie-Jo is the main character in this book that is about the struggles and hard times a family goes through. The only thing this book did was depress me; it did not do much more. Through all the ups and downs, Billie-Jo's family learns to forgive and forget, and take strength in one another.
This book can succeed easily in depressing someone, especially in times like:
"Ma ran across the kitchen,
Out the porch door,
Screaming for Daddy.
I tore after her,
Then,
Thinking of the burning pail
Left behind in the bone-dry kitchen,
I flew back and grabbed it,Throwing it out the door. I didn't know.
I didn't know Ma was coming back."(Karen Hesse, 61)
This poem captures the melancholy of the book. This incident affects the family through out the book. It ruins Billie-Jo's family life.
The family keeps each other going in difficult times, but in other times they hinder one another. They protect one another such as the time when Billie-Jo gets caught in a dust storm. Her father risks his life to go and find her. In other situations family pushes them apart. For example, there is the time when Billie-Jo runs away. She does this because she cannot stand living with her father. As you can see, this family has its ups and downs.
Every one in the family has guilt over what happened. All thought it was the others fault. Though it is sometimes hard, family has to forgive one another. Billie-Jo runs away, but eventually comes back to her father whom she ran away from. She forgives her father for leaving the kerosene by the stove, which started the fire that killed her mother. She realizes she cannot stay mad at him forever, and family means more than a grudge. Both of them end up forging each other and themselves for their mistakes.
Out of the Dust is a book like many others. It is like any old book and I would not say to anyone it is a "must read". It is like many other books about the Depression. The family has its own original problems, but that is about it. Its' writing style is weird; I have never seen a book like it. So, if you want to read a peculiar book, then and only then would I recommend this novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Out of the Dust
Review: " I forgot I was even playing in front of the packed Palace Theatre. I dropped right inside the music and didn't feel anything till after when the clapping started and that's when I noticed my hands hurting straight up to my shoulders. But the applause made me forget the pain, the audience roared when I finished, they came to their feet, and I got third place, one dollar." (Hesse, 132) My favorite poem in Out of the Dust is The Competition. It shows Billie Jo at her best. Even though her hands are sore and she is in agony, she still plays the piano. The audience also took consideration for her. They must have known what poor Billie Jo had gone through. This novel is appropriate for age 12 and up. Most children in 7th grade learn about the Dust Bowl and well probably understand the book better. I advocate this book for history and English teachers. Teachers should assign books more often. Also younger adults will see many examples of similes. Karen Hesse uses them a lot. The format of this book is bizarre! At first the poem format was confusing but when I kept going, it got more interesting. I couldn't even put the book down. Personally, I like books in diary format. Karen Hesse has done something I never saw before, writing a narrative to tell a story. The narrative was blank verse, which means the poem has no rhyme. Hopefully you will like this book as much as I did.
Rating:
Summary: Depressing.
Review: I find this novel being a quite bit too serious, slow, and depressing. It's about a girl, named Billie Jo that sadly lost her mother in a tragic accident. Billie Jo, having the town think it was all her doing, mostly caused the accident. After her death, the books slightly gets slower, being in the hassle of having a pretty bad relationship with her dad, and that makes the story even sadder.
"I don't know my father anymore.
He sits across from me,
He looks like my father..." (Hesse, 76)
What I really like about the novel is that it's a blank verse book that makes it look attractive, but once I saw it for the first time I had said, "Oh, it's just a short, boring looking book." Not really, the story does emotionally touch you by the way it's written. Out of all books I have read, I'd say this book would be worth it for all readers ages 12 and up. Excellent job Karen Hesse!
Rating: 
Summary: Out of the Dust
Review: I didn't like Out of the Dust very much because it's mainly about people suffering; like when the mother got badly burned or when the father got skin cancer. Since the book takes place in The Dust Bowl, the setting is very dry and dusty, so the book makes me thirsty when I read it.
Out of the Dust is written in a very strange way that I have never seen before; it is composed of many poems that tell the story, which makes it easy to read.
Out of the Dust is about a teenage girl, Billy Jo, who lives in the Oklahoma panhandle in the Dust Bowl. She burns herself and her mother in a freak accident. The mother died along with Billy Jo's unborn baby brother. Billy Jo, unable to play the piano anymore because of her wounds, becomes very miserable.
Want to know more? Why don't you go read the book?
Rating:
Summary: Review for Out of the Dust
Review: The book Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse is one year about the life of a girl named Billie Jo living in the Dust Bowl. My preferred chapter in the book is titled "The Accident" which is where Billie Jo's mother becomes burned. It's my favorite because it's where the plot takes a turn for the worst. I believe the book is suitable for kids age ten through thirteen because there are certain places in the book that anyone under ten years of age can't handle. I liked the way Karen Hesse used similes to describe Billie Jo's Great-uncle Floyd.
And Ma, with only Great-uncle Floyd,
old as ancient Indian bones,
and as mean as a rattler, rotting away in that room down in Dallas. (Hesse, 5)
I liked the book at some parts and disliked it at others. I liked it when an interesting and thrilling event was happening such as when Billie Jo was stuck in a dust storm and walking home as fast as she could. However, I disliked the parts that were a little deliberate such as where her mother helped a boy on the road who asked for some food.
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Summary: Out of the Dust review by Meaghan Yost
Review: Out of the Dust is a novel by Karen Hesse. The book is about a young girl named Billie Jo who lives in the "dust bowl" during the Great Depression. This particular book has many themes in it. The main theme is forgiveness. Forgiveness is the act of letting go of the past and to live in the present. Billie Jo has to learn this lesson and use this many times through out the book. She has to forgive her father for quite a few things in the novel. She has to forgive him for leaving the pail of kerosene by the stove, and for drinking up all the money when the mother wasn't well. Another person she has to forgive is herself. She has to forgive herself for throwing the pail of kerosene on her mother. She has to let go of the guilt and move on.
I think this is a great book for ages eight to fifteen. The book is to easy for ages over fifteen. Older kids might not enjoy the book as much as the younger group of kids. I thought this book interesting but it could have been better. The author could have put more detail into some specific parts, such as the accident, the death, and all the piano recitals. One thing I didn't like was how it went from one subject to another, and that it just left you hanging. Other then that it was a pretty good book. I think it deserves at least three stars
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Summary: OUT OF THE DUST
Review: Out of the Dust is a book written in a form of poetry called blank verse about the childhood of a girl named Billie Jo living in the Panhandle of Oklahoma. The year is 1934 and things are getting bad. The Dustbowl is becoming more violent than ever and the Great Depression is just starting to take effect. The people have little or no food because the crops cannot grow and the animals are dying. It becomes even worse when her father finds the emergency money and goes drinking. What he does tears the family apart until it cannot be called a family anymore. Because of the petrifying things going on, along with others that come deeper into the story, this book should be read in 7th, 8th, or 9th grade. Most will appreciate the dedicated work that Karen Hesse put into making this book a poem. Just about anyone could have written the book in paragraph form, but it must have been quite difficult to create a blank verse poem out of it. This a great book because of the poems like "September, 1934." There is so much description, tone, and mood about the sadness and agony, that it makes you feel like you are experiencing it for yourself. Just hope that you will never have to.
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Summary: Out of the dust
Review: Out of the Dust Out of the dust was a very good and informative book. There is one theme in this book that is portrayed many times through out the novel. The theme is Death and Rebirth and it's shown through out the book in a number of ways. One way it's shown is when Billie Jo's mom and brother died from the fire (death) and Billie Jo's father meets another woman who he really likes and completes their family again (rebirth). In addition to the death of her mother and brother, death also signifies: Billie Jo's hands, the dustbowl, and the depression very well. Death is Billie Jo's hands because they die when she burned them and she can't play piano anymore, but she's working at the rebirth part by trying to play and using her hands more so she can use them normally again. Death is the dustbowl because the people had killed the land by grazing too much and farming it too much but they are working on rebirth by trying to grow some more wheat and other crops there. Death is the depression because the economy had died and the people were trying to bring it back up (rebirth).This book tells a sad tale, but it is very useful to learn these thing so they don't happen again.
Rating: 
Summary: Out of the Dust
Review: "I wipe off Ma's dishes, and wait for Daddy to drive in with Louise hoping she'll stay a little later, a little longer" (Hesse, 226) Out of the Dust is a relatively easy book to read for most ages. To understand the theme and thoughts you must be about 13 or 14 to really understand it. Although it is not really a kids book, the plot seemed pretty easy to interpret. The one aspect of the book at I enjoyed was how the author would use similes and metaphors. She would put them in the appropriate place where they would make the most sense. I dislike this book for many different reasons. The first reason is that the book is very boring and could not capture my attention in many places. Another reason is that the book's theme plays by a similar and bland idea, people suffering and trying to escape poverty. This idea has been used in many books but just shaped and twisted so that it would match the time and settings the author wants. The only reason this books sticks out is how it was written. The last reason is that the written style would skip around from one idea to another in a matter of pages. It would not fully explain the idea and then go to another leaving the reader wondering, which is good, but the author would not mention again about the idea and you never would find out what happened. I have to say that this book is one of the worst I have ever read.
Rating:
Summary: Depressing, not enough detail, definitely not a must read.
Review: "I am filled with bitterness, it comes from the dust, it comes from the silence of my father, it comes from the absence of Ma." (Hesse, 195) That is in my opinion one of the most moving sentences in Out of the Dust it comes from the poem "Midnight Truth" right before she decides to run away from her father, and out of the dust bowl. Out of the Dust is a novel about a girl named Billie Jo in the Oklahoma panhandle, part of the Dust bowl during the great depression. The novel is of the many hardships of Billie Joe, her family, and her town. Good aspects about this book are all the vivid similes and metaphors that Hesse uses in this novel. This novel is not a must read, because although interesting at points it can be very depressing, and doesn't have enough detail. Its depressing because it seems anything bad will happen to Billie Jo, and because it is a long poem it never goes into enough detail. This novel is depressing at points so I feel that this book is only appropriate for thirteen and up.
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