The reason I enjoy books like this one is because I feel like I’m learning about a piece of history. Cows and other animals starved to death because their stomachs filled with dirt and they couldn’t fit any food in. There were babies who died because their lungs filled with dirt. Instead, they found a dust filled sky that you sometimes couldn’t see through. During this time people were traveling from the east coast to the west coast to get “fresh air” to help their health. In addition to those stories, there were many more that break your heart. Fear is what drives those actions, but it doesn’t excuse them. We seem to have done that consistently throughout our history, with the Japanese-Americans during WWII with Middle Eastern people today, etc. It’s horrible to see one more example of Americans persecuting a specific race. She sewed a note inside the overalls for him to find, saying she said she wanted a “real man.” After reading it, the shy farmer decided to write back and eventually the two got married.Īnother section talked about the prejudice towards German-Americans during World War I. She was sewing a huge pair of overalls for a man who special ordered them and she couldn’t help but wonder about the man who would eventually wear them. One that particularly stands out is the story of a woman who worked in a clothing factory. This nonfiction book tells the story of the farmers in the Great Plains and the tragedies they suffered during this time.Įgan has a wonderful talent for blending anecdotes with information. I’d read The Grapes of Wrath and knew about the Great Depression, but I had no idea just how bad it was. The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowlīefore reading this I thought I had a good idea of what the dust bowl was like.

The worst hard time review