Survival in the Storm: The Dust Bowl Diary of Grace Edwards

Winner of the Dear America contest Katelan Janke writes a wonderful and interesting story about Grace Edwards during the Dust Bowls of 1935. Grace writes about her the storms, the constant cleaning and of what its doing to people in the town. A really wonderful story.

Survival in the Storm is one of the best books that I've ever read! The author speaks with such feeling that you feel you are Grace, you feel as though the same things that happened to her are happening to you! The good and the bad! You learn so much about the time! You learn that there WERE a few rain showers during the dust bowl. They were not powerful enough to soak into the ground though! I deeply recommend this book to anyone and everyone!!!

Survival in the Storm was the best Dear America book I have ever read. I like it so much that I've read it three times! It tells about twelve-year-old Grace Edwards, who lives on a Texas farm during the Dust Bowl. It's sad when Grace's friend Helen moves to California, and when Ruth's (Grace's seven-year-old sister) best friend dies of dust pneumonia. But there are joyful parts too, like when Sadie, a girl who was always mean to Grace and Helen, becomes friends with them when she moves to California (she wrote Grace a letter and apologized, and she was in the same migrant camp as Helen.) I recommend this book to kids and adults.

At first I wasn't sure how good this new Dear America book would be, since Katelan Janke, the author, is just fifteen years old. But I was pleasantly surprised, since she has written a book just as good as many of the Dear America books written by adult authors. Katelan Janke has written a fictional diary of a young girl living in Katelan's own hometown during the Great Depression. Twelve-year-old Grace Edwards has lived on a farm near Dalhart, Texas for her whole life. But it's 1935, and the region is suffering from a terrible drought as the entire country is devastated by the effects of the Great Depression. Grace describes her daily life in a diary as her family faces hardship and sorrow. She describes their determination to hold on and to never give up hope, even as many of their friends and neighbors abandon their homes in the hopes of finding a better life elsewhere. If you have doubts about reading this book because of the author's age, you shouldn't. Katelan Janke is a good writer and has written a good book for the Dear America series.