Setting plays a large role in Karen Hesse’s Out of the Dust: fourteen year old Billie Jo Kelby lives in the panhandle of Oklahoma, the Dust Bowl, during the Great Depression. During a time when many people are uprooted, searching for work, and starving, Billie Jo discovers that where she lives is a part of herself and digs her roots down deep.
In the Dust Bowl there is a drought and not enough sod to keep the soil from blowing away. The parched land has turned to dust and nothing wants to grow in the soil anymore. Farms did well during World War I, when Europe needed the wheat to survive, but now everyone’s resources have been overextended and everyone is barely getting by. The land isn’t supporting the people anymore, let alone their animals.
Billie Jo’s family goes without and pinches pennies to get by, but they still give to those in need, even when they can’t really afford to give. Children today usually don’t have to worry about going without, or saving nickels, or wondering if the cashier has cheated you out of four pennies. It’s amazing when one realizes that Billie Jo wants to win a talent show so she can win a dollar, and the grand prize is three dollars. The economy has definitely inflated in the past fifty years.
The two things that are most special to Billie Jo are apples and music. Her mother planted two apple trees when she got married and carries pails of water to keep them alive. Every year the family has fresh apples, applesauce, and apple preserves. They put a bowl of apples on top of the piano, which was the father’s wedding gift to the mother. Billie Jo’s mother taught her how to play that piano and now she loves to perform. She dreams of her music taking her away from the dust someday. Her mother plays better than she can, and she dreams of someday playing so beautifully and finding someone that loves her the way her father loves her mother.
When Billie Jo’s mother dies, and her hands are burnt, she can’t play anymore. The piano was her mother’s, so it hurts to think of playing. It hurts to use her hands. Everything hurts. It takes a long time for Billie Jo to heal; she has to run away before she can realize that she is already where she belongs, that the dust is her home, that some things are worth fighting for.
However, it’s not really clear how she comes to this conclusion. The change is abrupt: first she gets on a train, she meets a hobo who has abandoned his family, he steals her food, and then she gets off the train in Arizona and decides to go home. She has dreamt of going to California, of escaping the dust, for the entire book, but she had not made any discernible plans to do so. She does not find the money her mother put aside for college until after she returns home. She hasn’t returned to her piano playing yet, so it is not clear how she intends to support herself. She suddenly decides to leave and just as suddenly decides to return. She never actually gets to her destination, and apparently discovers that she was already where she wanted to be. I suppose this is a practical view on life, something that we all experience from time to time, but also what some part of us usually wants to deny. I suppose this book is saying that you need to make sure you’re fighting for the right things.
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