The Best ‘Worst’ Book Discussion
Posted by: Kaite Stover
Like most book group facilitators, I’m always looking for ways to enhance the discussion. At the last meeting of the Kansas City Public Library’s lunch time biblio-chatters, Downtowners, I barely had to list a finger. That day’s selection was National Book Award Winner, The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan. In addition to bringing in three new members (two of them men!), participants brought their own discussion enhancers.
One of the men who had lived for a time in the most southwestern corner of Kansas brought a map of the state and surrounding state and passed it around for the other participants to examine. He pointed out the Cimarron National Grassland area and talked about what the land looked like now .
Another participant held up the incendiary documentary, The Plow That Broke the Plains, and brought reader attention to this important historical document and it’s depiction of the misuse of the land that lead to the Great American Dustbowl. She also noted the use of folk music in the film.
Readers discussed the scholarship and writing style of the author. All found the story compelling, but felt there was too much extraneous detail that bogged down the narrative. One reader did note that while she tended to skip many of the ecological or scientific or political details, they were necessary for reader to understand the long term effects of the Dustbowl and how it came to be.
The last related item that participants briefly discussed is Newbery Award winner, Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse. This verse novel presents this tragic period in the Great Depression through the eyes of a fourteen-year-old girl who loses her mother and younger brother in a tragic accident for which she blames herself. Through the never-ending dust storms, Billie Joe holds onto her love for the music of the period, ragtime, and begins to forge a new relationship with her stubborn father who will not leave the harsh and unforgiving land.
All the Downtowners remarked that this significant piece of American history was given short shrift in their high school history classes and appreciated the detail learned in Egan’s book, Hesse’s juvenile novel, and the documentary.
October 10th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Sounds like another fine book where they author may have felt compelled to use too much of their research. But definitely something worth reading.