Product Description

Looking out the farmhouse window, Matthew's grandfather tells him about the Big Dry of the 1930s, which turned golden wheat fields into a dust bowl. Fifty years later, another drought is upon them and, once again, this prairie family clings to the hope of seeing their land green. Evocative illustrations capture life on the prairies in this powerful story of one family's determination to hold on to its farm.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #300878 in Books
• Published on: 1996-06-30
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 32 pages

From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 3. History can be difficult for children to conceptualize, but here a boy's breakfast connects him to the past. The dust that coats Matthew's cereal bowl becomes a metaphor for the drought his family faces. Like the "Big Dry" of the 1930s, there's too little rain and too much wind for the wheat they grow on their farm. Listening to his grandfather's stories about life on their Canadian farm during those years, and watching his father toil for the land he loves, Matthew learns that determination has overcome hardship in the past and likely can again. Reczuch's pencil-and-watercolor illustrations have a matte finish that mimics a fine coating of dust. Readers will feel the wind-blown sand stinging the children's faces as they walk home from school. The menacing grasshoppers that devoured the crops during the "Dirty Thirties" are viewed from a close-up perspective, making them appear to be larger-than-life monsters. Children in farming communities may find comfort from knowing that the problems of the present have been overcome in the past. City dwellers will come to realize the courage it takes to continue working the land in the face of uncertainty.?Jeanette Larson, Texas State Library, Austin
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
Booth (Doctor Knickerbocker and Other Rhymes, 1993, etc.) uses a present-day drought on a Canadian farm as a prompt for a grandfather's gritty reminiscence of the hardscrabble times during the 1930s Dust Bowl. Readers follow along a slow-moving narrative, hearing of dust and dirt everywhere, learning of towels stuffed in the cracks of doors, of children walking to school backwards to keep the wind from stinging their faces, and of clearing the dust from the nostrils of cows. The underlying theme suggests the fortitude and tenacity of overcoming hardship; the story itself comes across as a bit of a sleepy memoir, without a strong thread to connect it to the contemporary farm. The grandfather was a young married man during the ``Big Dry,'' so his perspective naturally remains an adult one. Laced with historical facts that may work best in a social-studies curriculum, the telling lacks emotion, and these male members of three generations don't have any personalities to draw readers in. The grainy, nostalgic illustrations in muted earth tones capture the energy of dust storms: A cloud of hot, sucking wind frightens the horse, knits the brow of the grandmother, and creases the faces of children walking against the wind. (Picture book. 7-10) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review
It is in the grandfather's voice that Booth's sharpest and most evocative writing comes through. Karen Reczuch's sun-bleached, dusty colors complement Booth's text perfectly, and she conjures up the modern-day and Depression-era farms - and the expanse of the Prairies - with equal ease. (Quill & Quire )

Listening to his grandfather's stories about life on their Canadian farm during those years [the “Big Dry” of the 1930s, and watching his father toil for the land he loves, Matthew learns that determination has overcome hardship in the past and likely can again. Reczuch's pencil-and-watercolor illustrations have a matte finish that mimics a fine coating of dust. (School Library Journal )