Voices of the Dust Bowl

Garland imagines the voices of individuals living in the American Midwest during the Dust Bowl. In 1933 Texas, Bonnie and Clyde travel in a "stolen Ford V-8/ looking for a bank to rob." Other characters include a nurse at a "makeshift hospital" in 1935 Kansas ("Every day I see mothers tend their dying babies, / helplessly watching the small bodies struggle for air") and a mother of nine en route to California, looking for work. There's an immediacy and quiet desperation in Garland's first-person unrhymed poems; while Hierstein's paintings can be rich and evocative, particularly her landscapes, her characters' expressions are at times lifeless. Additional historical information is densely packed into a two-page afterword. Ages 4-7. (Mar.)

Gr 3-6--In this third volume in Garland's "Voices" series, 16 individuals describe life during the drought and resulting dust storms on the Great Plains that lasted from 1931 until 1940. Watercolor spreads feature a portrait of the "speaker" in his/her own environment on one side and a short narrative in poetic prose on the other. These are labeled with a date and location, e.g., "1919--Western Kansas"; "Mid-1930--Oklahoma"; "1937--Texas Panhandle"-and arranged chronologically. An old warrior remembers the buffalo herds that roamed the prairie of his youth; a "sodbuster" shows off his "fields of waving gold" (wheat); a banker closes up shop after the stock market crash; schoolmarm, farmer's wife, and nurse relate the awful effects of dust storms, especially on the children; a hobo rides the rails looking for work; a U.S. conservation agent teaches FDR's anti-erosion measures to farmers; a nine-year-old sees her first rainstorm in 1940. Bonnie Parker and Dorothea Lange have their say, as well. Hierstein's paintings are artistically pleasing and informative; the sadness and deep concern on most people's faces reflect the somber mood of the time. A two-page historical note is appended to this well-researched introductory piece. Two other informational titles for the same age group are Allison Lassieur's The Dust Bowl: An Interactive History Adventure (Capstone, 2009) and Sue Vander Hook's The Dust Bowl (ABDO, 2009).--Susan Scheps, Shaker Heights Public Library, OH