Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse

Billie Jo and her parents are struggling to survive. There is no money. The farm has had no rain. Worst of all, storms are blowing across the land, raining dust on everything.

And then, in the midst of all the suffering, comes tragedy: Billie Jo’s mother and tiny baby brother die in a horrible accident. A difficult life becomes impossible.

A grim, bleak novel, yes, but a novel that has stayed with me since I first read it ten years ago, a novel that is just as good the second time as it was the first.