40 Fun Facts About Out of the Dust

In Out of the Dust, what does the pail left beside the stove hold when Ma mistakes it for water?

Kerosene, the lamp fuel, bursts into flame when Ma pours it to make coffee. Billie Jo flings the burning pail out of the door just as her mother runs back towards the house.

In Out of the Dust, Billie Jo names her newborn baby brother after which American president?

Franklin Roosevelt was the president whose New Deal offered farmers like her father a crop loan. Billie Jo gives the name at the burial, when the reverend asks what the baby should be called.

In Out of the Dust, Ma weeps over news of Canada's Dionne sisters, a famous 1934 set of what?

Quintuplets were sensational news in 1934: five babies born at once to one mother in Canada. Ma, carrying a single child through a hungry summer, sheds a tear trying to imagine it.

In Out of the Dust, Billie Jo's father jokes that the dusty milk at dinner has turned into what?

Chocolate is his joke for the brown milk, just as the grit on the potatoes is pepper. Plates and glasses wait upside down on the table until the moment the food is served.

Which instrument, a wedding gift from her father to Ma, is Billie Jo's great talent in Out of the Dust?

Piano lessons from Ma began on Billie Jo's fifth birthday. By thirteen she is earning dimes playing with a local band in towns across the Panhandle.

Out of the Dust follows Billie Jo through the Dust Bowl years on a farm in which state's Panhandle?

Oklahoma is home: the family farms in Cimarron County, at the far western end of the Panhandle, outside the fictional town of Joyce City. Neighbour after neighbour gives up and heads west.

Which American children's book prize, named after an English publisher, did Out of the Dust win?

Newbery Medal judges pick the most distinguished American children's book of the year. Karen Hesse's winner, published in 1997, tells its whole story in short dated poems.

In Out of the Dust, Mr. Noble and Mr. Romney bet on who can kill more of which crop-eating animals?

Rabbits ate what little the drought left, so the two farmers killed twenty each, then fell out over who had cheated. Billie Jo hates the contest, though the meat goes to hungry families.

How does Billie Jo travel when she runs away from home in the summer of 1935 in Out of the Dust?

In a freight boxcar she rides west through desert heat and mountain cold. She carries only a few biscuits and the dimes Ma had saved for her.

In Out of the Dust, Billie Jo plays at a President's Birthday Ball, held to fight which disease?

Polio had paralysed the president himself, and the balls held on his birthday supported the Warm Springs centre in Georgia that he turned into a clinic. A year later Joyce City's dance raises thirty-three dollars.

Which crop does Billie Jo's father insist on planting in Out of the Dust, despite years of drought?

Wheat had paid well in wetter years, so he rejects Ma's advice to switch to cotton or sorghum, which cope better with drought. He has grown it before, he says, and he will grow it again.

In Out of the Dust, Billie Jo's friend Livie Killian moves away with her family to which state?

California drew many families fleeing the dust in search of work. Livie later writes that neither of her parents has found any, and that her brother Reuben has gone off to fend for himself.

Which part of Billie Jo's body is badly burned as she tries to save her mother in Out of the Dust?

Hands that once made music are left scarred and painful after she beats out the flames on her mother's apron. For months afterwards it hurts too much to play.

Which young singer, Billie Jo's rival and later her crush in Out of the Dust, lands a radio job in Amarillo?

Mad Dog Craddock owes his nickname to his father, who gave it to him because he bit everything as a small child. Neighbours crowd into the hardware store to hear him sing live on the radio.

Which poetic form did Karen Hesse choose for Out of the Dust, feeling that spare wording suited hard times?

Free verse let her be as frugal with words as Dust Bowl families had to be with everything else. Each poem closes with a month and a year, so the book reads like Billie Jo's diary.

In Out of the Dust, which fruit grows on the two front-yard trees Ma has nursed through the drought?

Apple blossom covers both trees one May despite the dust, and Billie Jo dreams of pies and dumplings. Her father grumbles that they drink more water than anything else on the farm.

What does Billie Jo's father spend months digging near the house in Out of the Dust, as Ma had once urged?

A pond was Ma's idea for catching water, one he argued against while she lived. Once it is finished he plans to stock it with catfish for the frying pan.

In Out of the Dust, which flowers did Billie Jo's father see on soldiers' graves in wartime France?

Poppies grew bright along the trail of the fighting, one of the few things her father will say about his time in the Great War. Billie Jo wishes they could push up through the dust at home.

In Out of the Dust, why did her father pick the name Billie Jo for his newborn daughter?

He wanted a son, and he raises Billie Jo to handle any job on the farm, even driving the tractor. Years of hoping for a second child pass before Ma announces another baby.

Which swarming insects strip the fruit from Ma's two trees on the day she dies in Out of the Dust?

Grasshoppers descend while Billie Jo is outside fetching water, and they devour every plant on the farm however hard she fights them. She never gets the chance to tell her mother.

In Out of the Dust, which night-school teacher grows close to Billie Jo's widowed father?

Louise taught his night-school class and kept him company while Billie Jo was away. She wins Billie Jo over by listening well and by never trying to take Ma's place.

In which state does Billie Jo give up running away and turn for home in Out of the Dust?

Arizona is where she climbs down, and a woman from a government agency gives her food and water. Days of travelling alone have taught her that a silent father is better than no one.

In Out of the Dust, Billie Jo plays through pain to take which place in a Palace Theatre contest?

Third place earns her a dollar, and the applause makes her forget the pain. The young singer who beats her into second goes home with two dollars.

In Out of the Dust, where in Joyce City does Buddy Williams's homeless family shelter for several weeks?

The schoolhouse becomes their home, and the pupils bring in food while the father mends things around the building. They drive on west two weeks after his wife gives birth there.

In Out of the Dust, a hungry stranger steals Billie Jo's biscuits as she sleeps and leaves what in exchange?

A family photo of his wife and three boys is all the man owns, and his Kansas address is written on the back. Billie Jo decides to post it so his wife will know he is still alive.

In Out of the Dust, spots on Billie Jo's father's face raise fears of which illness that killed his father?

Skin cancer is the fear, and for months he ignores the spots as though he had given up. Once Billie Jo is home he lets Doc Rice cut the growths away, and is scolded for waiting so long.

Which Christmas dish of Ma's does Billie Jo wish she had learned to cook in Out of the Dust?

Cranberry sauce was her father's favourite, but Ma never showed her how it was made. Billie Jo cooks their first Christmas dinner as a pair without it.

What is the first name of Billie Jo's father, the stubborn farmer at the heart of Out of the Dust?

Bayard fought in France in the First World War before coming home to farm the Panhandle. He says little about the war, and after Ma's death he says little about anything.

In Out of the Dust, what does Sheriff Robertson seize from two moonshiners and hand over to the school?

Sugar was what the two men needed for their still, and instead of carting it away the sheriff gives it to the school, where the teacher turns it into sweets for the children.

What is the name of Arley Wanderdale's band, which Billie Jo joins on the road in Out of the Dust?

The Black Mesa Boys share their name with the flat-topped landmark in Cimarron County that is the highest point in the state. Ma agrees for the summer only, with Arley's wife Vera along to keep an eye on Billie Jo.

In Out of the Dust, which Texas city is home to Aunt Ellis, who invites Billie Jo to live with her?

Lubbock is where her father's sister lives, and the invitation sits in a mailbag while blizzards of dust bury the tracks. Billie Jo longs to leave home, but not to live with her aunt.

After Ma's death in Out of the Dust, Billie Jo's father takes paid work digging holes for what?

Electric towers were going up for a company called Wireless Power, which hired him to dig. Billie Jo trusts him with the wages, because he has not touched a drink since Ma died.

Which New Deal work program for young men does Billie Jo long to join in Out of the Dust?

The Civilian Conservation Corps gave unemployed, unmarried young men manual jobs conserving natural resources. Billie Jo is too young and a girl, but work far from the dust sounds wonderful to her.

Which ancient remains, dug up in Cimarron County, does Billie Jo beg to go and see in Out of the Dust?

Dinosaur bones turn up in the county's green shale, and Billie Jo pictures a brontosaurus herd where cattle now graze. Her father, looking towards Ma's grave, says the dead are best left to rest.

Which violent weather event, met on a visit to Kansas, helped inspire Karen Hesse to write Out of the Dust?

A tornado she lived through in Kansas showed her the plains at their most violent. The other spark came from her writers' group, who asked why a girl in one of her stories longed so badly for rain.

Which award, nicknamed the genius grant, did Out of the Dust author Karen Hesse receive in 2002?

MacArthur Fellowship winners are picked for extraordinary originality, usually only twenty to thirty a year across every field. Hesse was chosen five years after her Dust Bowl novel came out.

Out of the Dust won a historical fiction prize named for which author of Island of the Blue Dolphins?

Scott O'Dell set up the award himself in 1982, hoping to interest young readers in the history that shaped their country and their world. It honours one historical novel for children each year.

Which Joyce City storekeeper in Out of the Dust gives Billie Jo four cents too much change by mistake?

Mr. Hardly usually shorts his customers a few cents, so the slip is a surprise. Billie Jo walks all the way back to his store to return the money, and he does not even thank her.

In which Panhandle town does Billie Jo's father get drunk on Ma's hidden savings in Out of the Dust?

Guymon, the largest town in the real Panhandle, is where he spends some of the money Ma had hidden away. Billie Jo, her own burns bandaged, is left to give her mother water.

According to the opening poem of Out of the Dust, where in the farmhouse was Billie Jo born in August 1920?

The kitchen floor had to do, because the baby arrived before the doctor could reach the farm and her father delivered her himself. It was harvest time, with the summer crop ready in the fields.