BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hesse, Karen. 1997. OUT OF THE DUST. New York: Scholastic Press
ISBN 0590360809
SUMMARY
This poignant historical fiction novel written in free verse form tells the story of fourteen year old Billie Jo Kelby and her family’s struggles during the 1930’s dust storms. The story starts out from the view point of Billie Jo and her reflections on her birth and how she has always been a disappointment to her father because she was born a boy and hence how she was named.
As the story progresses the reader learns of the hardships, devastation, and struggles that the people of this time lived through during this time in America’s history. For example, Billie Jo’s father leaves a bucket of kerosene near the stove and the mother picks it up thinking it is water and catches the stove and the surroundings on fire. The mother runs outside and Billie Jo thinking that she is helping throws the bucket outside; however, at the same time her mother is returning to the kitchen and catches on fire. She and her unborn fetus suffer for several days before eventually dying. Billie Jo’s hands gets burned in the process of saving her mother but the people are not as concerned about that as what happened to the mother and fetus. What is so ironic is the fact that all the neighbors and mourners at the funeral and lunch afterwards at the Kelby’s home focus on what Billie Jo did not on the carelessness of her father.
Before the accident Billie Jo had with the reluctance of her parents developed the talent of playing the piano. She inherited this trait from her mother who used to play at home before marrying and raising a family. After her hands were severely burned she gives up pursuing this dream due to charred and scarred hands as well as the painful memories playing the piano brings of her mother.
Billie Jo’s disconnect from her father, her destitute surroundings, along with her own grief lead to her to run away from home and try to find a better life away from all the sadness and poverty that surround her constantly. She hops a train illegally, which was termed a hobo and meets up with a fellow hobo. Through her conversations with him she discovers that home is where she longs to be. The kindness of others allows her to return to her beloved home and reconciliation with her father.
Once home she discovers that her father and a local single woman named Louise, who turns out to be her father’s night school teacher, have become friendly and are developing a close relationship. At first, Billie Jo is angry about this but through the slow, gentle, kind, unobtrusive ways of Louise Billie Jo warms up to her and by the end of the novel the reader is aware that not only are the Daddy and Louise going to be married but that Billie Jo will be alright and has come to terms with the death of her mother. Billie Jo is once again playing the piano as she did before the tragedy.
CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Hesse is a master at using concrete and abstract meanings in OUT OF THE DUST. Most readers will have had experience at one time or another with having dust covering some part of their body and at the same time through Hesse’s creative use of abstract thinking we also get a sense of what it must have been like to live day to day, month after month, with multiple layers of dust covering everything and everyone day and night.
The unmetered and unpatterned rhythm lends itself well to the free verse type such as this one. Hesse also has a gift for creating a powerful voice for her characters. She knows how to speak the language that a child during this era would talk and yet the language still is understandable and appealing to students today. Billie Jo and the other characters comes alive and even though they are fictional characters the reader is pulled into their lives and roots for them during times of triumph, and feels their pain and sadness during the tragedies that confront each and every one of them that lived during this time period in America’s history.
Each “mini” poem within the novel lends itself well to allowing the reader to use their mind’s eye and recreate the sense imagery. Many children have had similar experiences of using their senses to explore and experience the world around them. For example, from an excerpt on page 18 when Billie Jo has been sent to the local grocery store to get supplies for a cake her mother was making for Billie Jo’s father she states
I could smell apples,
ground coffee, and peppermint.
I sorted through the patterns on the feed bags,
sneezed dust,
blew my nose.
Hesse also has a wonderful way of creating a tone and mood that draws the reader from the first page and grasps him/her until the turning of the very last page. A reader makes an instant emotional connection with the characters in the story through the eloquent moving language that Hesse uses.
Every reader at some point in their lives, no matter their age or circumstances, has experienced a situation that to them was a crisis. Therefore, it is easy to identify with Billie Jo when she exclaims
The way I see it, hard times aren’t only
about money,
or drought,
or dust.
hard times are about losing spirit,
and hope,
and what happens when dreams dry up.
REVIEW EXCERPT
Publishers Weekly-"This intimate novel, written in stanza form, poetically conveys the heat, dust and wind of Oklahoma. With each meticulously arranged entry Hesse paints a vivid picture of her heroine's emotions."
CONNECTIONS
There are many excellent verse novels available if you want to continue with your students in this genre. Here are four that I have selected:
Creech, Sharon. 2001. LOVE THAT DOG.
New York: Harper Collins. ISBN 0060292873
Frost, Helen. 2003. KEESHA’S HOUSE.
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 0374400121
Grover, Lorie Ann. 2007. LOOSE THREADS.
New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 1416955623
Sones, Sonya. 2003. WHAT MY MOTHER DOESN’T KNOW.
New York: Simon Pulse. ISBN 0689855532
A couple of other books by Hesse include:
BROOKLYN BRIDGE. Illustrated by Chris Sheban.
New York: Macmillan. ISBN 0312378866
WITNESS. 2003. New York: Scholastic Press. ISBN 0439272009
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