Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Dust and Books

Rothstein, Arthur. Son of farmer in dust bowl area.
Cimarron County, Oklahoma. April 1935.
America from the Great Depression to World War II:
Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1935-1945,
Library of Congress.

I have another post up over at The Newbery Project: Dust, a review of Karen Hesse's poetic* 1998 winner, Out of the Dust.

rebel from www.sybermoms.com suggested I take a look at The Kids' Book Club Book: Reading Ideas, Recipes, Activities, and Smart Tips for Organizing Terrific Kids' Book Clubs, by Judy Gelman and Vicki Levy Krupp, so I requested it from the library, and noticed happily that Out of the Dust is one of their titles for "grades 4-7". The six pages on Out of the Dust (with spoilers! yes, you can have spoilers in a book of poetry) include a recipe for apple pandowdy, some wonderful quotes from Karen Hesse, and Hesse's recommendation for Woody Guthrie's Dust Bowl Ballads. My kids aren't in a book club, but I think we will listen to Woody's cd on the drive to my parents' this weekend.

*literally as well as metaphorically - the book is a collection of poems that tell a story

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dust Bowl Ballads! I'd forgotten. We have it on vinyl but no longer have a turntable that works.

My 10 year old started this yesterday after we looked at some photos you linked to and she told me what they'd learned in school about the dust bowl. My 12 year old has read it. I guess I'm next.

rebel

Sandy D. said...

It's good. Really good. I'll bet you like it a lot (knowing a bit about your taste in books :-) ).

Karen Hesse also has a younger children's book - a picture book - called "Come On, Rain", that is about a drought in a city. Unfortunately I couldn't find it on the shelf this morning, but I'm going to request it soon.

Sandy D. said...

Update: My kids are philistines. Nobody but me really liked Woody Guthrie. :-(