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Out of the Dust---Karen Hesse
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From: Cathy Sullivan Seblonka <cathys>
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 15:29:07 -0500 (EST)
The more I think about OOTD the more I see in it and appreciate it. I like the tension about the coming baby after several years of infertility. Rather like the infertility of the soil. At the end will there be new life in the soil? Will it survive or be prematurely lost? And the period of being unable (or refusing) to play the piano. Will her skill blossom anew?
I like the flavor of guilt permeating the poem. Even though we know the accident wasn't the girl's fault, she assumes it wholesale (while still blaming her dad, too). Kids assume so much guilt in real life, even when things aren't their fault.
I like the way the dad's new woman friend moves slowly into their lives.
(I'm sorry, I read the book a little bit ago and cannot remember their names.) She gives the girl time to grieve and to accept her as a person and friend before she has to accept her as a stepmother.
I was expecting the damage to the girl's hands to be such that she would never play the piano again. I was so surprised and pleased with the doctor's plain, commonsense remark to her inquiry about her hands--lather them with creme and use them! What a relief and what hope it brought to the story.
As to the earlier comments on the list regarding the "burning and death scenes", I thought they were well done. If a child grows up on a farm or in the woods where trees are cut, he or she has probably heard of or sommehow experienced a horrible accident resulting in serious injury or death. Children have probably all seen pictures from the Nazi concentration camps and the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. These are more frightening than a story (to me) because they are real. I just skimmed Milton Meltzer's book Weapons & Warfare (1996). In it he states that in the US a person is shot every two minutes, a person dies from a gunshot wound every 14 minutes and every two hours a child dies from gunshot wounds. With car accidents, sports injuries and deaths like these, not to mention the tremendous amount of physical and/or sexual abuse so many children suffer, I imagine most children could handle the scene in OOTD.
Well, this doesn't sound hopeful and longer.
Cathy Sullivan Seblonka Youth Services Coordinator Peter White Public Library 217 N. Front St. Marquette, MI 49855
(906) 228?10 fax (906) 228s15 e-mail: cathys at uproc.lib.mi.us
Received on Thu 05 Feb 1998 02:29:07 PM CST
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 15:29:07 -0500 (EST)
The more I think about OOTD the more I see in it and appreciate it. I like the tension about the coming baby after several years of infertility. Rather like the infertility of the soil. At the end will there be new life in the soil? Will it survive or be prematurely lost? And the period of being unable (or refusing) to play the piano. Will her skill blossom anew?
I like the flavor of guilt permeating the poem. Even though we know the accident wasn't the girl's fault, she assumes it wholesale (while still blaming her dad, too). Kids assume so much guilt in real life, even when things aren't their fault.
I like the way the dad's new woman friend moves slowly into their lives.
(I'm sorry, I read the book a little bit ago and cannot remember their names.) She gives the girl time to grieve and to accept her as a person and friend before she has to accept her as a stepmother.
I was expecting the damage to the girl's hands to be such that she would never play the piano again. I was so surprised and pleased with the doctor's plain, commonsense remark to her inquiry about her hands--lather them with creme and use them! What a relief and what hope it brought to the story.
As to the earlier comments on the list regarding the "burning and death scenes", I thought they were well done. If a child grows up on a farm or in the woods where trees are cut, he or she has probably heard of or sommehow experienced a horrible accident resulting in serious injury or death. Children have probably all seen pictures from the Nazi concentration camps and the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. These are more frightening than a story (to me) because they are real. I just skimmed Milton Meltzer's book Weapons & Warfare (1996). In it he states that in the US a person is shot every two minutes, a person dies from a gunshot wound every 14 minutes and every two hours a child dies from gunshot wounds. With car accidents, sports injuries and deaths like these, not to mention the tremendous amount of physical and/or sexual abuse so many children suffer, I imagine most children could handle the scene in OOTD.
Well, this doesn't sound hopeful and longer.
Cathy Sullivan Seblonka Youth Services Coordinator Peter White Public Library 217 N. Front St. Marquette, MI 49855
(906) 228?10 fax (906) 228s15 e-mail: cathys at uproc.lib.mi.us
Received on Thu 05 Feb 1998 02:29:07 PM CST
