Storyline: 4 Stars
Analyzing a story can be somewhat difficult for an informative nonfiction book like this one. However, I think this book was an exceptional piece of nonfiction literature. It was interesting, informative, but it still told a story. So many nonfiction books are boring and get bogged down in the details, but this one really came alive. I was hooked! A lot of times nonfiction books can seem like a chore, especially when it heavily relies on history like this one, but this one was a great read. Or maybe I just find the dust bowl so interesting!
The book followed several characters throughout the narrative, which I think enabled the reader to really connect with what was going on in the dust bowl. I appreciated how Egan was able to go back and forth between the broader facts of the dust bowl and the more intimate details of particular people. I think it was written well, and Egan also did a good job of bringing awareness to how the government and farmers and humans in general had abused the land without being overly preachy about it. I honestly do not know if a lot of people know how the farming impacted the land like that; I knew a little, but not to that extent.
If your only experience with reading about the dust bowl is The Grapes of Wrath, you should read this book. It paints a much clearer picture of what the dust bowl was actually like since so many of those impacted staye din the land. This kept me hooked the whole time!
Parental Guidance: 90% Recommend
I would recommend this book 90% of the time. There was nothing inappropriate in the book, which is typical for nonfiction. There may have been a small swear word here and there quoting someone, and there was some violence and disturbing parts about what people did and the disaster that the dust bowl storms caused. I think the book would be appropriate for kids over the age of 12, as long as they have good comprehension skills and could follow a nonfiction book well.
Real Book Chat
*Spoilers Ahead*
I have only read two books that even mention the dust bowl, and both are fiction and both have a very similar storyline. The first is The Grapes of Wrath and the second is The Great Alone. I love a good fiction book, and I enjoyed both of those books. However, this book was something that I was looking for because I have wanted to know more about the dust bowl for a long time.
I honestly did not realize how much of an impact the farming made on creating the dust bowl. I knew that the farmers were harsh with the land which helped cause the dust bowl, but I did not realize to what extent. I did not realize that it all used to be grasslands, which now makes sense since the cowboys were there first. I did not know that the farming industry drove the cowboys out either. Learning the chronological history of how the land was used was fascinating. I also did not realize how quick the turnaround was from when people started farming the land to when the dust bowl started; I thought there was a longer amount of time, but I was mistaken.
Reading the book made me start researching the farming industry in that area today. Being from the Midwest, particularly Minnesota, I was not aware how bad the land south of us or even where we are is for farming. I don’t think many realize that.
The most interesting part of the book for me was learning about the Germans. I come from Germans myself and my family came over in the late 1890s and early 1900s. I always wondered why, and the book mentioned the town “Herzog”! That is my maiden name. Then to make it even crazier, the book mentioned how many of the Germans migrated north to Minnesota during the dust bowl. And guess where I was born and where all my German family is? Minnesota! I don’t know if that is a part of my history, but it very well could be.
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