Rating: 
Summary: Make it into a novel
Review: "Lots of mothers wishing these days while their sons walk to California, where rain comes, and the color green doesn't seem like such a miracle, and hope rises daily like sap in a stem." (Hesse,59) Out of the Dust is a book about a 13-year-old girl named Billie Jo, kind of a strange name for a girl, living in the "Dust Bowl" during the Great Depression." Jo lives with her mother and father on a wheat farm that isn't doing too well because it isn't raining. Tragic things happen and Jo runs away but realizes she is lonely without her father so she goes home and there's a chance to start anew. "Wild Boy of the Road," is my favorite poem in this book because it seems to capture the misery of this time and place. It also shows how everything seemed hopeless. This book is appropriate for 12 year olds and up, because it's pretty depressing, but the reading level is about 5th grade. I like the similes and metaphors in this book but it seems more like a poetry collection than a story. The narrative poems inside are connected by a thin story. The story is told one narrative at a time instead of in a flowing novel. Karen Hesse was trying to be innovative instead of telling the story right. Not a good read for those who are not open-minded.
Rating:
Summary: Out of the Dust
Review: "Daddy named me Billie Jo, He wanted a boy, Instead he got a long legged girl." That was just a token of the glorious poetry in Out of the Dust.When I first began to read Out of the Dust I was weary and there wasn't much excitement holding me to the story. The book is for 11-20 year olds and it got more exciting later in the story. The book is about a poor little girl whose mother dies by a fire which she started. The little girl named Billie Jo lived on a farm in the middle of the Dust Bowl. Her father wanted a boy but instead received a girl. The entire book is made up of little poems, my favorite is "Dream". "Each day after class lets out, each morning before it begins, I sit at the school piano, and make my hands work." This is after the horrific fire incinerated her hands. This story opened my eyes to life in the Dust Bowl times. Before I read this book I had no idea that life was so hard and painful back then. I recommend this book to anyone who has not read about the real life of people in the 1930's.
Rating: 
Summary: DUST
Review: "Soon there won't be enough wheat for seed to plant next fall"(Hesse,39). This story takes place in the panhandle of Oklahoma so you can understand the problem. There is a great drout and no crops are growing so people run out of money. The poem is called "Broken Promise" and tells how this rain is important but keeps missing them. "Broken Promise" It rained A little Everywhere But here. The luck of Billy Jo is limited and still no rain will come- just a town of dust and I think that is a shame; shame because the whole time she has been going through so much and she can't get just a little bit of rain.
Rating:
Summary: Out of the Dust
Review: "The women talked as they scrubbed death from our house."(Hesse, 71) Out of the Dust is a sad depressing story about a young girl named Billie Jo, who has to face one of the worst times in American history. The Dust Bowl. Billie Jo has to face many obstacles. Having to live in a place where the dust never stops blowing. This book was pretty well written but extremely sad and depressing. So if you like well-written books but are extremely sad and depressing then this is the book for you.
Rating: 
Summary: Out of the Dust Review
Review: "On Sunday, winds came, bringing a red dust like prairie fire, hot peppery, searing the inside of my nose, the whites of my eyes. Roaring dust, Turning the day from sunlight to midnight." (Hesse, 46) Billie Jo, a thirteen-year-old girl, had to face this horror day after day. Out of the Dust is a compelling tale of Billie Jo's hardship of living in the Dust Bowl and Great Depression. Every time a dust storm hits, her family is in danger of losing their farm. After the stove fire crisis, which leaves her mother and Billie Jo terribly burned, eventually kills her mother as well as her newborn baby brother. When the tragedy strikes, Billie Jo's love grows stronger for her father, and for the piano. This is a very interesting and compelling story of this young girls courage, and I enjoyed it very much. I recommend this novel to eight years olds or older. I think once you have read this book, you will be captured by the courage and strife that comes with the dust storms. EW
Rating:
Summary: Out of the Dust
Review: "Ma tried having other babies. It never seemed to go right, except with me."(Hesse,4). Billie Jo, a thirteen year old girl living in the "pan handle state", feels like a complete disappointment to her father. All of her life she knew she would never be accepted by her father because she was a girl and he wanted a boy, but a tragic accident with kerosene leaves her pregnant mother dead and Billy Jo severely burned. This would change their relationship forever. Alone with her depressed father and the dangerous dust storms, she comes to realize the hardships of life in the Great Depression. On a desperate search to find herself, she realizes that she needs her father as much as he needs her to survive and family is the most important key to survival. Reading this book was like riding a roller coaster; it had its high and exciting points, but dropped you to a low depressing point. It was very creatively written and different to see a point of view from the eyes of a child surviving the Great Depression and trying to get Out of the Dust.
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Summary: Out of the Dust Review
Review: "After seventy days of wind and sun, of wind and clouds, of wind and sand, after seventy days, of wind and dust, a little rain came." (Hesse, 23) Karen Hesse's Newbery Award winning novel Out of the Dust tells the story of thirteen-year-old Billie Jo and life in Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl. Hesse deftly uses long, narrative verse and creates a vivid image of Billie Jo's close-knit community and of their long endurance of the hostile natural environment they live in. Each event is told in the form of a poem. My personal favorite was "Fields of Flashing Light". It isn't a happy poem; on the contrary, it's about a dust storm and what dust storms did to the farms, and to families. But I think that makes it all the more meaningful. "I sensed it before I knew it was coming. I heard it, Smelled it, Tasted it. Dust." (Hesse, 31) One of the many strong metaphors Hesse uses is "The wind snatched the snow right off the fields, leaving behind a sea of dust, waves and waves and waves of dust, rippling across our yard." (Hesse, 33) Out of the Dust opened my eyes to things I could never imagine about life in extreme natural conditions and also reinforced that the human spirit can endure just about anything.
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Summary: My point of View
Review: "I am awkward with him, and irritated, and I want to be alone but I am terrified of being alone". This is a quote that I feel I can relate to in a way. My favorite poem in Out of the Dust is "The Empty Spaces". This book is appropriate for 13-15 year olds. Any younger than 13 won't understand most of these poems. I disliked this book, even though I have not read the whole thing. I thought it was too boring and I would not want to say "Oh that was a good book" when there was a discussion going on about it.
Rating: 
Summary: Slightly disturbing
Review: "I heard the wind rise, and stumbled from my bed, downstairs, out the front door, into the yard. The night sky kept flashing, lightning danced down on its spindly legs" (Hesse, 39) I like the poem " Fields of Flashing Light" because it is very descriptive and uses a good metaphor. Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse, is a compelling, long narrative poem,gruesome which depicts the Dust Bowl in 1934. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to feel depressed and realize what he or she is thankful for. The poetry in the book was exceptional. I enjoyed the book a great deal. Some of the events were a little depressing though. The mother gets burned in a fire and suffers for a few weeks and then finally dies .The father and Billy Jo aren't too close. Billie Jo runs away in search of something, but doesn't find what she is looking for so she returns home. Overall this novel was mediocre. Some of the poems were a little graphic but it was still entertaining
Rating: 
Summary: Out of the Dust
Review: My favorite poem in the story is "Motherless". The poem describes how sad and dreadful the main character,Billy Joe, feel after her mother's death. "If Ma could put her arm across my shoulder sometime, or stroke back my hair, or sing me to sleep, making the soft sounds, the reassuring noises, that no matter how brittle and sharp life seemed, no matter how brittle and sharp she seemed, she was still my ma who loved me, then I think I wouldn't be so eager to go." (Hesse, 148) The poem made me feel dredful. This one quote was enough to show Billy Joe's sadness. I think this book is enough to warm all ages of people's heart. Each words and each phrase are heart warming. This book has similes like "Legs running like fence rails down to a giant foot."(Hesse, 187) I liked this book because it was very interesting to use a poem to tell a story.
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