Oklahoma Ag in the Classroom
Ag-Related Books for Children and Young Adults
Oklahoma History
Antle, Nancy, Beautiful Land: A Story of the Oklahoma Land Rush, Puffin, 1997. (Grades 3-5)This short chapter book describes the opening of the Oklahoma Territory. Anna Mae, her brother, and her father have been living in a dugout on the Kansas prairie for two years waiting for word that the new territory is open for settlement. When the news comes, the family lines up with others to race in a land run. Claim jumpers try to cheat them, but soldiers ride to the rescue and all ends well. Although too short to explore fully the emotional issues raised, the book fulfills its purpose in creating sympathetic characters and showing what daily life may have been like for settlers of the period. |
Booth, David, and Karen Reczuch, The Dust Bowl, Kids Can, 1996 (Grades K-3).A drought is plaguing a farm family, and Matthew's grandfather looks out the window and tells him about the Big Dry of the 1930s. He describes the good times when farmers felt as if they had struck gold, and also recalls the great dust clouds that could block out the sun for days. Once again, as this new drought continues, the family clings to the hope of seeing their land green. |
Cooper, Michael, Dust to Eat: Drought and Depression in the 1930s, Clarion, 2005. (Grades 6-8)Personal stories of survival during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl within the Great Plains, with depictions of migrant camps and description of President Roosevelt's response to those in need. |
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Hesse, Karen, Out of the Dust, Scholastic Paperback, 1999. (Grades 4-6)A poem cycle that reads as a novel, "Out of the Dust" tells the story of Billie Jo, a girl who struggles to help her family survive the dustbowl years of the Depression. Fighting against the elements on her Oklahoma farm, Billie Jo takes on even more responsibilities when her mother dies in a tragic accident. |
Myers, Anna, Red-Dirt Jessie, Walker, 1992. (Grades 4-7)Jessie, a girl living in the Oklahoma dust bowl during the Depression, tries to tame a wild dog and help her father recover from a nervous breakdown. |
Porter, Tracey, Treasures in the Dust, Harper-Collins, 1996. (Grades 4-7)Annie May Weightman and Violet Cobble are best friends and neighbors. They live in Cimarron County, Oklahoma, during the Great Depression. This is their story, told in two voices. Annie is happiest on the ground, sifting through the dust for traces of the past. But Violet is a dreamer always playing make believe to escape, to fly away from the dusty land. In this beautifully crafted novel, poet Tracey Porter joins together two unique voices to tell a larger story of America, its hopes and dreams, during a time when thousands fled their prairie homes in search of work, food, and shelter. |
Stanley, Jerry, Children of the Dust Bowl: The True Story of the School at Weedpatch Camp, Crown, 1992. (Grades 4-7)This true story took place at the emergency farm-labor camp immortalized in Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Ostracized as "dumb Okies," the children of Dust Bowl migrant laborers went without school - until Superintendent Leo Hart and 50 Okie kids built their own school in a nearby field. |
Turner, Ann Warren, and Robert Barrett, Dust for Dinner, Harper Trophy, 1997 (Grades K-3).This I Can Read Book revolves around an Oklahoma family displaced by drought and the Depression. Because the book is divided into chapters, youngsters will get the feeling of reading a "real book," while having the luxury of short sentences, generous leading, and a direct, easy-to-grasp plot line. Realistic, nicely executed illustrations decorate every page, and the book ends on a happy note: Dad finally finds a job in California. |
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