In a series of poems, fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships of living on her family's wheat farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl years of the Depression.

Until the arrival of European and American settlers in the late nineteenth century, the southern Plains of the United States were predominantly grasslands, the home and hunting grounds of many Native American tribes and the range of untold millions of bison. It was seldom used for farming. Bitterly cold winters, hot summers, high winds and especially low, unreliable precipitation made it unsuitable for standard agriculture. But at the start of the...

Discusses the causes and effects of the disastrous dust storms that hit the Great Plains in the 1930s.

In 1910, Zada the camel treks across the West Texas desert to save two baby kestrels from an approaching haboob, a mountain-sized storm, sharing adventures from her youth in Turkey to keep them calm.

Thirteen-year-old C.J. records in a journal the conditions of the Dust Bowl that cause the Jackson family to leave their farm in Oklahoma and make the difficult journey to California, where they find a harsh life as migrant workers.

A twelve-year-old girl keeps a journal of her family's and friends' difficult experiences in the Texas panhandle, part of the "Dust Bowl," during the Great Depression. Includes a historical note about life in America in 1935.

Discusses the causes of the Dust Bowl and the plight of farmers and their families during and after the storms.

Ten-year-old Orry Jenkins is sick and tired of the dust. The year is 1935 and Kansas hasn't gotten enough rain in years. Instead of rainstorms, they get dust storms. One day, Orry and his little stepsister go outside to play. They're far from home when a huge dust storm comes up. Stranded alone on the plains, the children must find a way to survive the terrible black blizzard.

As Matthew and his grandfather look out the farmhouse window, his grandfather tells him about life on the farm during the great dust storm of the 1930's.