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Summary: This reveiw tells a little about the book and what I thought
Review: Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse was about a girl who is involved in the accident that kills her mother. I enjoyed this book because it really tells how a girl of her age would feel. It is a little depressing so I recommend it to those of you who can handle and enjoy sad stories.
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Summary: A book that describes true courage, fear and change.
Review: Out of the Dust is a wonderful novel written to describe the Oklahoma dust bowl during the Great Depression. Billy Jo is a slightly stubborn, fourteen-year-old girl, who loves her family, her life and disposition. Until the dust comes. Karen Hesse describes how Billy Jo feels as she is crippled in the accident that kills her mother. Billy Jo tries to cope with the dust, as everyone does. She knows the blackness in the food at dinner, the "chocolate milk" in her glass, are "nothing but dust" but she, as they all do, imagines life without the dust. Billy Jo, desperate to free herself from the dust, flees from all she knows and had loved, to the west were there was supposed to peace, and most of all, no dust. I'm not going to tell you if she is successful, for that would ruin the experience of one of the trials that happens to Billy Jo. The courage, power of heart, and plain willingness to survive that Billy Jo displays is beautifully described by free-verse poems in diary style. I would recommend this book to anyone who would like to watch over as a "redheaded, freckle-faced, narrow-hipped girl with a fondness for apples and a love for playing fierce piano" discovers what is truly important as she rebuilds her life after a immense disaster that ceases control of her life.
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Summary: Very moving
Review: It was very compeling. It was sad but truthful in telling about a girls life in the dust bowl. She loves to play the piano, and when burns her hands and her mom dies the book gets sad. But she learns to play again and help her dad through hard times. It is a very good book.
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Summary: Great Book!!
Review: THis is a great book!! It's about a girl named Billie Jo. She's living in America during the depression. It's a pretty average story, but it's written in the most beautiful way!! It's like every page is a poem that doesn't rhyme. Karen Hesse has a way with words!!
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Summary: Different and Unique
Review: I thought this book was very interesting becauase of the way that it was written. I never thought that a book written by free verse could create such a great story line that was so very moving and well written. It also explains the story well. Ms. Hesse has obviously worked very hard and the book deserves its Newbery Medal. I liked best how Ms. Hesse used free verse poetry to express the hardships of a young teenage girl during the Depression and Dust Bowl. I read this book on my own time and there's no doubt about it that it was worth it!
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Summary: Billie Jo did it her way with a dust-laden piano.
Review: Self-imposed blame festers into guilt.Relief comes when one forgives oneself first. Then others. Karen Hesse once again lets us see into the mind of her characters so we too can dust off our hangups and play on.
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Summary: I read this book in a day!
Review: It started this morning when I was looking for a book, and it just stared at me. I had to check it out. As soon as I read the first poem I was hooked. The words are simple, but sometimes can be hard to understand. I read all day, every chance I got. I finish it in the school day. Half in reading and half in homework center. Karen Hesse gives a dazzling account of the dust storms that swept through Oklahoma. It sounded terrible. I think the saddest part was when her mother and baby brother died, and Billy Jo's hands were burnt so badly. I got so mad at her father. But in the end I forgave him. I would reccomend this book to anyone. Get it, somehow or someway!
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Summary: This is a very good book.
Review: I liked the way Karen Hesse writes.I thought it was good because it was sad and I learned how people lived back then.
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Summary: Is there such a thing as too much dust?
Review: Written in free verse, Karen Hesse's Newbery winning novel Out of the Dust certainly captures the severity of life in Oklahoma's Dust Bowl during the Great Depression. Hesse's sparse language reflects the almost unrelieved harshness of narrator Billie Jo's life. Beginning with her birth on the kitchen floor of her family's shack, 14-year-old Billie Jo takes readers through her life as an only child who struggles to overcome her father's disappointment in having a daughter while trying to develop a musical talent, discover who she is, and survive the desert-like conditions of the Dust Bowl. Billie Jo manages to keep readers at arms length despite her truly horrible circumstances. When her mother falls victim to the carelessness of the father, Billie Jo sees accusers everywhere. The book pivots on this episode yet it doesn't ring true. How could a man who had always lived in the Dust Bowl leave a bucket of kerosene near a stove? Surely he knew the devastation that could result from fire. And wouldn't the dry, wood-frame shack have immediately succumbed to the flames? Even suspending belief, would Billie Jo really have grabbed the scalding bucket? Mightn't she have thrown water or perhaps a blanket on it instead? And why did she toss the bucket before she was outside on the barren earth where presumably nothing would have been hurt? Yet even with suspended disbelief, do readers really need such gruesome detail about the mother's injuries? Other books such as Sarah Plain and Tall and the Little House books portray life in equally difficult circumstances but manage to convey the information in a more understated and emotionally engaging manner. This depressing portrayal of a young girl whose dark life is lit only dimly by the light of her mother's piano playing and a half-hearted attempt to leave the dust fails to emotionally engage the reader. Readers find it hard to bridge the distance created by Hesse's terse language, which is appropriately and beautifully used in the description of the first rain. Hesse has tackled a painful subject, but the Newbery award is for books for children up to age 14. Don't children get enough harshness today? Must everything be spelled out in blistering detail? I would not recommend this book to children younger than 14, yet because it bears the Newbery Medal, teachers and others who work with children and books may unwittingly give it to children as young as eight. Perhaps society would improve if we let our children be children.
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Summary: OUT OF THE DUST is a wonderful book!
Review: The book OUT OF THE DUST by Karen Hesse is a wonderful book. It is set up in the form of journal entries. The entries have few words but the words are well picked and they mean a lot. While reading the book, Billie Jo, the main charachter seems to come alive. 14 year old Billie Jo has a lot to deal with. When her mother dies she is blamed fot the terrible accident. Without her mother Billie Joe and her father grow farther apart. Billie Joe despertly wants to leave the Dust Bowl. I would definatly recommend this book to anyone ages 9 or 10 to adult.
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