Out of Dust \Karen Hesse
Great Source 240 Pages 2009
Poetry

Imagine waking up in terror of intense dust storms every once in a while. Having dust run up and out your nose and mouth. Not being able to play your favorite instrument because your hands are badly wounded from burns.
Out Of Dust is in the point of view of first person. Billie Jo was a long-legged redhead who lived in Oklahoma Panhandle in the dust bowl during The Great depression when people didn’t have many jobs Billie Jo and her family’s life is certainly not easy they are going through very hard financial problems. Even though they are having all these problems Billie Jo is trying to make her life the best it can be.
Billie Jo’s mother died a couple weeks after the accident happened, her father put some kerosene next to the stove then her robe caught on fire. While Billie Jo was trying her hardest to beat out the flames on her mother’s robe she got burns on her hand. “Thinking of the burning pail left behind in the bone-dry kitchen, I flew back and grabbed it and threw it out the door.”
Billie Jo’s father isn’t talking to her a lot from what happened to her mother so Billie Jo runs away and goes on a train west but then she figures out that she can’t run away from the dust because it is everywhere. A thing I learned from this book is that you can’t run away from your life you have to fight the thing in your life you’re trying to get through.