Sample Text Set on Dust Bowl

Young adult fiction

  • Out of the Dust (Hesse, l997, 240 pages). Written in first-person free-verse peems, this Newbery Award winner is told from the point of view of a young girl who lives in the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression. Although the reading level is low, the concepts are mature.
  • The Green Coat: A Tale of the Dust Bowl Years (McDunn, 2007, 200 pages). A 12-year-old girl is faced with tragedy when dust storms roll across North Dakota. An inspirational story of family, courage, and perseverance. Easy to read.

Biography

  • Farming and the Dust Bowl: A First-hand Account from Kansas (Svobida, l986, 256 pages). Biographical account of a farmer who lived through the Dust Bowl is gripping and factual, but it will talk older or more advanced younger readers to stay with it. The concepts are good for science teachers who want students to examine the ecological causes of the Dust Bowl.

Nonfiction, young adult

  • Children of the Dust Bowl: The True Story of the School at Weedpatch Camp (Stanley, l993, 96 pages). A true story about the children of Dust Bowl migrant laborers who were sent to a farm-labor camp. It is an easy read and has illustrations. The camp was featured in Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, so American literature teachers may find he book a nice addition t their classroom libraries.

Photo essay

  • The Dust Bowl Through the Lens: How Photography Revealed and Helped Remedy a National Disaster (Sandler, 2009, 96 pages). A wonderful example f visual literacy, this brings together famous and not-so-famous photographs of this disaster. It offers two-page spreads with a quote to begin each new topic along with a few paragraphs of text. Use this book for language arts, science, and social studies; it explores how farming methods and the weather contributed to the Great Depression.

Nonfiction

  • The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl (Eagan, 2006, 340 pages). As the most difficult read in the text set, this book is also the most graphic and comprehensive for students who develop a keen interest in the topic or need a bit of a challenge.

Websites

  • Surviving the Dustbowl (PBS documentary and website). The website previews the video and offers interviews, biographies, and articles related to the Dust Bowl. A section on the website asks viewers to share their experience especially if they knew someone who lived during this time. Retrieved from
  • Library of Congress American Memory. Search this website for “dust bowl” and you’ll find 118 items, mostly photographs, but it also includes manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project. Take a look at
  • Wessels Living History Museum of York, Nebraska. Students can choose a real person who survived the Dust Bowl and listen to his story at
  • National Weather Service: The Black Sunday Dust Storm of 14 April 1935. Site offers weather data for April 14, 1935 (Black Sunday) along with reports of the great dust storm. For information, visit
  • Woody Guthrie. Hear Woody Guthrie sing “Dusty Old Dust,” a song he made famous about a dust storm at

The lyrics may be retrieved from