The main characters in this book are Billy Joe and
her father. Billy Joe is a young girl who was named by her father because
he only wanted a boy. When her mother gave birth to her, Billy Joe’s
father
named her Billy Joe. She is an amazing piano player and loves
apples. Billy Joe is a long-legged girl with red hair and freckles.
She looks a lot like her father. Her father is a quiet man who doesn’t
speak a lot. These are the key character traits of the two main characters,
Billy Joe and her father.
The Summary
For the first time in about 9 years, Ma finally
had success in becoming pregnant. Billy Joe and her mother and father
were then involved in a horrible accident. By mistake, her father
put a pail of kerosene next to the stove. Ma thought it was water
and poured it in a cup to make coffee. Suddenly, it burst into flames
and all three of them rushed
outside for safety. Billy Joe ran back to the kitchen, took the
pail and threw it outside, but she didn’t know her mother was running back
to get her. Her mother got burned badly by the flames. So did
Billy Joe’s hands. She then couldn’t play the piano any more.
Ma had her baby soon after the accident. A
boy that pleased Pa, but sadly, both Ma and the baby didn’t make it and
passed away soon after. Pa was quieter than ever after the accident and
he and Billy Joe were like strangers throughout the many dust storms.
Ma’s precious apple tree died and the two of them spoke rarely to each
other.
Time passed and everything went the same.
It didn’t rain very much and there were more dust storms than ever. Finally,
rain, sleet, and snow came. Tons of it. It fell for three whole
days, non-stop. Pa started going to night school. His teacher,
Louise, then started coming over sometimes. Thankfully, the government
loaned them seed to plant their crops with since they hadn’t been having
much success in farming.
Finally, Billy Joe started playing piano again,
just a little through, despite her scarred hands. Next, she ran away
because she was tired of her father and the farm, but only for two days
because she got homesick.
Billy Joe then forgot her scarred hands and started
playing the way she used to. Even though she had to stretch the scars
on her hands a bit, “Billy Joe’s music gets to know her, and she gets to
know the music,” the author wrote. She and Pa got to be a lot friendlier
to each other and they become happy again. And that is how this story
ends.
I think this book was very sad but interesting.
I would rate Out of the Dust a “9” on a scale of one to ten.
(Ten being the highest!) I would rate it a “9” because I really liked
the way the author, Karen Hesse wrote it. I thought it was really
neat that everything in Out of the Dust was poems. I also
liked it because you couldn’t predict what was about to happen. That
is why I think this book, Out of the Dust, was really enjoyable
to read.