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Summary: Great Historical Fiction!
Review: Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse is an emotional story of a girl struggling through adolescence during the Depression. Written in free verse poetry, the story has a unique sense of rhythm coupled with vivid imagery and poignant emotions. The format of the book makes the reader feel as though you are being allowed to read Billy Jo's private journal entries. Because the book is such a quick read, the dated entries, along with the seasonal imagery, help remind the reader of the time frame of events. While this book is about forgiveness, I also think of it as a coming of age story, with our main character maturing in many ways throughout the book. Out of the Dust would make a wonderful addition to a classroom environment especially when discussing the Great Depression because of the vivid imagery and realistic trials experienced. I found Billy Jo easy to relate to. This book is also historically accurate as Karen Hesse did a great amount of research on the Dust Bowl during the Depression.
Rating: 
Summary: Out of the Dust
Review: In Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse, a 14 year old struggles with life in 1930's. Her life is pretty good, her Ma pregnant and her being great at the piano. But a terrible accident changes her whole life. Her mom is longer with her and she can barley play the piano. How will she ever survive with only a father? This novel was good and quite an emountial rollercoaster. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves to read.
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Summary: Out of The Dust - A Poetry Novel
Review: For Billie Jo a fourteen-year-old living in the Oklahoma panhandle playing the piano is the only thing that comforts her. Her life is rough like a rock as even the short walks to school are dangerous because of the sudden and unsuspecting dust storms. Then to make matters worse her mother's life is abruptly put to a halt and Billie's hands are damaged so they can never play again. Without the comfort of her mother and music Billie wants to escape her town and her tragic life. But when she gets the chance to escape she learns about companionship, forgiveness and most of all family. Throughout this novel you feel Billie's emotions and thoughts. This novel by Karen Hesse is one that will thrill readers' will for years to come.
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Summary: it's a good book
Review: I thought Out of the dust was a very good book. It was especially good, because it is written in free verse poetry and is different from other books. I would recommend this book to anybody who wants to know the story of someone living in the Great Depression.
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Summary: A touching Story
Review: Out of the Dust is a touching story about Billy Jo. Billy Jo is a girl living in the dust bowl to a poor family. Dust has covered everything in her house. Her Father has become a stranger to her and her best friend, Livie has recently moved away. This book was sad to read about the things people had to go through. Overal, I enjoyed reading the book. The poems and the style of writing is a page turner.
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Summary: Great Book
Review: This bok was very interesting. I would highly recomend this book to middle school and highschol students. We thought it had good lessons tolearn from and it would help would father and daughter relationships as well. We would read this book anytime again because its so good. Complements to the author.
Rating: 
Summary: Ok book
Review: I think that the novel Out of the Dust was an ok book. It is made of a series of poems writen by the main character Billy Jo. The author of this book is Karen Hesse. It takes place in Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl. This novel is only 227 pages long and the peom set up makes it a very quick read. It was realy hard to distinguish between the rising action, climax, and falling action of this book though. So really you feel like something is going to happen but it never does. All the main character talks about is how dusty it is and how she wants to leave. The dust and wind is so bad that they can't grow the wheat they need to survive. The only real events that happen in the book are that the mother gets burned by Billy Jo and later dies giving birth to a baby that just dies, and Billy Jo finally runs away from her Father and the dust at the end but she just comes back.
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Summary: Out of the Dust
Review: I thought this book was fantastic. Karen Hesse used very few words to tell the story of Billie Jo, a 14 year old girl growing up in Oklahoma during the dust bowl. Although, she uses few words, the words that she does use, tell the story completely and vividly. The story is written in the form of a journal of non-rhyming poems. When Billie Jo loses her mother and severely burns her hands in an accident, Hesse portrays her pain in a way that the reader really feels. My hands actually hurt when Billie Jo is describing the things that cause pain in her injured hands. Billie Jo and her father, who is grief-stricken, must find a way to reconnect and support each other through the bleak days of the dust bowl. Although this story takes place during the dust bowl, the themes of healing, strengthening family relationships, and hope that are found throughout the story are timeless. My daughter, a 7th grader, read this book for English class and then suggested it to me. I started reading it last night and could not put it down until I was done with it.
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Summary: Out of the Dust
Review: Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse is a heartwarming book that will touch readers of all ages. This book explains through the eyes of a teenage girl the struggles and hardships of life in the Midwest during the era of the Dust Bowl. Billie Jo, a teenage girl struggles against the whirling wind and dust to survive, so she too will not become lost and buried in the world of dust. Throughout the course of this book Billie Jo faces many heartbreaking tragedies and at times it looks as though she can't go on. Though through all of this heartbreak and destruction Billie Jo realizes that she can't escape the things that have happened to her, she just has to face them and move on with her life. She also realizes that things such as family, friends and love are things that will stay true to her and that they are the important things in life, not money and material possessions. I really enjoyed this book. It gives a vivid description of what life was like and how people managed during the Dust Bowl. It made me realize how lucky I am and how easy my life really is. This is a well written book that I would recommend to readers of all ages. It is a good book with a strong message and is very easy to read. I really enjoyed this book and I hope you do too.
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Summary: Dreaming in the Dust
Review: Billie Jo's struggles are the struggles of most teenagers. She wrestles with her mother's discipline and her father's silence. She has friends and homework and she feels awkward with boys. What makes Billie Jo's struggles so hard is the dust. Everything, her whole life, is covered in a sea of dust. Still, in the midst of it all Billie Jo dreams. She dreams of the baby growing inside her mother and she ponders what it would be like to have a sibling. She has been alone for14 years. She dreams of playing piano in the Palace and she dreams of a life free of dust. She watches as the dust drives people away. They leave their homes and their families to find a life away from the dust. They blow away with the wheat fields. Billie Jo fights the desperation of the choking dust and she learns that the only force of nature worse that dust is fire.
As she sits in the kitchen watching her mother make breakfast, Billie Jo's dreams are consumed in fire. Her mother is badly burned in a horrible accident and Billie Jo in an attempt to save her mother and brother beats out the flames with her bare hands.
Billie Jo's disfiguring accident scars her hands and her heart. She tries to play the piano for comfort, but the pain is too much. All that emerges from her attempts to play "is tortured sounds." She is desperate to escape the pain, but she is too much like her father. She is rooted. As the town struggles together to eke out an existence, she finds hope and she begins to heal. She learns to bear the emptiness of her loss and she learns how to "make things last through winters and drought."
Using the strong, simple voice of Billie Jo, Karen Hesse describes how the Dust Bowl tested the land and character of the Oklahoma farmers. This story is not sentimental. Its sparse, matter-of-fact style of free verse captures the battle of those whose lives were withered by drought and yet they managed to stay rooted and survive.
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