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In Out of the Dust, 14-year-old Billie Jo relates how her mother dies after an accident with burning kerosene. Blaming both herself and her father, she is unable to express herself through her piano playing because of the burns that scar her hands. She leaves but quickly returns to her home "of dust" and she realizes how much a part of her it is.



Ellen Fader, 1998 Newbery Committee chair, said, "Hesse's painstaking first-person narration of Billie Jo's withering and, finally, taking root is spare and gritty. She creates a stark and piercing rhythm in a free verse form that naturally and immediately communicates this story of Billie Jo's fierce spirit and growing self-understanding."