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Jaclyn Carey March 13, 2007
Mr. Blyskal AP English Period 9
The Worst Hard Times Book Review
Timothy Egan’s “The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl” is a book that delves into the period of time when dust storms terrorized America's Great Plains in the most grim years of the Depression. This would be a marvelous book for high school or college students that might be taking classes in U.S. history, or even those just interested in history. In textbooks the events preeminent in the book are given barely a few paragraphs if not sentences. The book allows students to take a closer look at the actual besiegement that affected thousands of people on the desolate plains. Egan depicts so distinctively the individuals, elements, and themes of the early Great Plains, it makes one feel as though they can really empathize with those struggling through the adversities.
After America's lush plains turned to dust bowls, every family that moved out there took on the same story, daily struggles tainted with dirt. The authors’ interviews with survivors manufacture accounts of valor and distress. Hazel Lucas, for example, impudently gave birth in the middle of the dust filled days only to have her little one pass on due to ‘dust pneumonia’ when the child’s lungs became clogged with airborne dirt. Adversity is a timeless theme that can envelop any individual, so the book becomes relatable and intriguing.
and how the ferocious plains winds stirred up an endless series of "black blizzards" that were like a biblical plague.