Next Year

Gr 4–6—This illustrated first-person narrative opens on "Black Sunday," a day which begins cool and clear but unfolds to produce "midnight in the middle of the day." Kelley's illustrations quickly progress from nostalgic representations of children playing to frightening expressionistic depictions of the dust bowl during the Great Depression. The narrative darkens, too, describing "knives of sand" that invade the narrator's home and turn his dad into "a beaten-up little kid." There is no sugarcoating in this poetic description of the dust bowl. In fact, the era's challenges are so clear that it's hard to understand why the narrator's family decides to stay rather than migrate with most other farmers. However, the austere beauty of the plains and the pride of Western farmers come through beautifully and lend readers a sense that they have shared an experience rather than listened to a lecture.