Years of Dust: The Story of the Dust Bowl.

Marrin, Albert (author).

Beginning with the cover photograph of a town dwarfed by the thousand-foot-high clouds of a “black blizzard,” this exceptional overview brings close the terrifying, bleak realities of the Dust Bowl. With his usual clear and thorough approach, veteran author Marrin puts the era into both historical and environmental context, starting with the ecology of the Great Plains and moving on to the human behavior that contributed to the catastrophe. Marrin’s narrative drama occasionally feels overwrought: “It seemed like an evil spirit had splashed an immense bucket of black paint across the sky.” Throughout, though, the lively prose delivers a strong sense of how the Dust Bowl occurred and what its survivors endured. Numerous well-integrated first-person accounts bring even more immediacy, and readers won’t forget the heartbreaking details of daily survival, both for those who stayed on the Plains and for the refugees who fled to become migrant workers. Among the riveting images that fill the well-designed pages are archival posters, news clippings, maps, and photographs, including Dorothea Lange’s indelible portraits. In a final cautionary chapter, Marrin discusses global trouble spots that could lead to even more cataclysmic Dust Bowls in the future. A time line, glossary, and chapter notes round out this exemplary cross-curricular title that encourages students to find the urgent connections between the “Dirty Thirties” and our current environmental crisis.