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by Karen Hesse
Acclaimed author Karen Hesse's Newbery Medal-winning novel-in-verse explores the life of fourteen-year-old Billie Jo growing up in the dust bowls of Oklahoma.
"Dust piles up like snow across the prairie... ."
A terrible accident has transformed Billie Jo's life, scarring her inside and out. Her mother is gone. Her father can't talk about it. And the one thing that might make her feel better -- playing the piano -- is impossible with her wounded hands.
To make matters worse, dust storms are devastating the family farm and all the farms nearby. While others flee from the dust bowl, Billie Jo is left to find peace in the bleak landscape of Oklahoma -- and in the surprising landscape of her own heart.
"Readers may find their own feelings swaying in beat with the heroine's shifting moods as she approaches her coming-of-age and a state of self-acceptance." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"The poem/novel ends with only a trace of hope; there are no pat endings, but a glimpse of beauty wrought from brutal reality." —Kirkus Reviews
This information about Out of the Dust (Scholastic Gold) was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Karen Hesse is the award-winning and critically acclaimed author of many books for children. Her titles include Witness, The Cats in Krasinski Square, and the Newbery Medal winner Out of the Dust, among many others. She lives in Vermont with her husband and two teenaged daughters.
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