What do you think?
Rate this book
Like Dust, I Rise
"Like Dust, I Rise is an uplifting tale that artfully pulls you into the slipstream of a scrappy girl who defies the ravages of the Dustbowl and The Great Depression to achieve her goal of becoming a pilot." –Bruce Lewis, author of Bloody Paws
Inspired by Amelia Earhart's heroic flights, young Winona 'Nona' Williams tenaciously clings to the desire to become a pilot even after her father, with dreams of his own, dismisses the idea. When he quits his job in the Chicago stockyards to join other homesteaders settling the Great Plains, Nona finds herself torn between supporting her father's vision for their future and her mother's struggle to adjust to life on a desolate prairie.
Initially, things look up for the family as they settle into life in Dalhart, Texas. The wheat boom is in full swing, and it appears her father's dream of providing his family with a home of their own is coming true. Too soon the effects of the depression impact her family. Then the rains stop. Before long, Dalhart is the epicenter of the Dust Bowl.
Like Dust, I Rise transforms poverty into pride and reflects the heroism of endurance.
Inspired by Amelia Earhart's heroic flights, young Winona 'Nona' Williams tenaciously clings to the desire to become a pilot even after her father, with dreams of his own, dismisses the idea. When he quits his job in the Chicago stockyards to join other homesteaders settling the Great Plains, Nona finds herself torn between supporting her father's vision for their future and her mother's struggle to adjust to life on a desolate prairie.
Initially, things look up for the family as they settle into life in Dalhart, Texas. The wheat boom is in full swing, and it appears her father's dream of providing his family with a home of their own is coming true. Too soon the effects of the depression impact her family. Then the rains stop. Before long, Dalhart is the epicenter of the Dust Bowl.
Like Dust, I Rise transforms poverty into pride and reflects the heroism of endurance.
263 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 9, 2021
64 people are currently reading
1664 people want to read
About the author
Ginny Rorby
16 books137 followersGinny Rorby was raised in Winter Park, Florida, and lived in Miami during her career as a Pan American flight attendant. Midway through that career, she enrolled in the University of Miami to pursue an undergraduate degree in biology, graduated and changed direction again. She went on to receive an MFA in Creative Writing from Florida International University. Her goal, after wrapping up her flying career and her graduate studies, was to move someplace where she would never be hot again. She now lives on the chilly coast of northern California. Ginny is the author 6 novels for Middle Grade and Young Adults readers: Freeing Finch, How to Speak Dolphin, Lost in the River of Grass, winner of the 2012 / 2013 Sunshine State Young Readers Award; Hurt Go Happy, winner of the 2008 American Library Association’s Schneider Family Book Award. The Outside of a Horse and Dolphin Sky. Ginny is a past director of the Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference.
Her most recent novel, Like Dust, I Rise, is a Coming of Age novel set in Texas during the Dust Bowl.
Her most recent novel, Like Dust, I Rise, is a Coming of Age novel set in Texas during the Dust Bowl.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 53 reviews
January 26, 2022
This book was one I never wanted to put down, nor did I want it to end.
The characters are all very well developed and you will grow to care deeply for Winona "Nona", the young woman who is telling this story. She is holding onto a dream of being able to fly a plane in a time when female pilots were rarer than rare until the name Amelia Earhart came to be known.
Living in what could only be described as a tenement near Chicago's stockyards where her father works at a job he despises and where the smells waft into their cramped apartment daily, Nona dreams of a different life.
Her father is harboring dreams of his own. Realizing he cannot continue to work at the stockyards, he decides to head to Texas where there is land that is supposed to be good for farming wheat. He leaves the family, saying he will send for them when he is settled.
Good to his word, he does just that, but the family is in for a huge shock when they leave everything they know behind to join their patriarch.
They get there about the time the famous dust bowls begin, WWI is over but WWII looms in the distance, life is hardscrabble at best and near impossible at worst. Saying any more would constitute giving the story away, so I will stop at that.
If you love historical fiction that feels so real you can taste the dust, dance in the rains when they come, and fall in love over and over again with a young, strong, determined soul determined to find her dream, then pick up this book and set aside some time because it will be a while before you look up again.
The characters are all very well developed and you will grow to care deeply for Winona "Nona", the young woman who is telling this story. She is holding onto a dream of being able to fly a plane in a time when female pilots were rarer than rare until the name Amelia Earhart came to be known.
Living in what could only be described as a tenement near Chicago's stockyards where her father works at a job he despises and where the smells waft into their cramped apartment daily, Nona dreams of a different life.
Her father is harboring dreams of his own. Realizing he cannot continue to work at the stockyards, he decides to head to Texas where there is land that is supposed to be good for farming wheat. He leaves the family, saying he will send for them when he is settled.
Good to his word, he does just that, but the family is in for a huge shock when they leave everything they know behind to join their patriarch.
They get there about the time the famous dust bowls begin, WWI is over but WWII looms in the distance, life is hardscrabble at best and near impossible at worst. Saying any more would constitute giving the story away, so I will stop at that.
If you love historical fiction that feels so real you can taste the dust, dance in the rains when they come, and fall in love over and over again with a young, strong, determined soul determined to find her dream, then pick up this book and set aside some time because it will be a while before you look up again.
March 6, 2022
This book was an outstanding surprise for me. It was very powerfully written and incredibly accurate as far as the historical part of historical fiction.
Characters were well crafted and people that you could associate with. I especially liked Winona who let us through the story as a first person experience.As a Nebraska resident, they will order of the background. This book is very accurate in its detailing of such a heart.
I really enjoyed Ginny Roby and I look forward to reading more of this authors books.
Characters were well crafted and people that you could associate with. I especially liked Winona who let us through the story as a first person experience.As a Nebraska resident, they will order of the background. This book is very accurate in its detailing of such a heart.
I really enjoyed Ginny Roby and I look forward to reading more of this authors books.
December 9, 2021
Before reading this book, I knew little about the Dust Bowl. I’d watched “Grapes of Wrath” in a high school history class. I’ve found Dorothea Lange’s photographs of that era to be both stunning and disturbing. But nothing caused me to feel what it was like to endure the horrors and hardships of living on the American plains during that time. Until now.
“Like Dust I Rise” gave me a real sense of the struggles people faced during the Dust Bowl and an admiration for their strength and courage.
Ginny Rorby is an expert storyteller who weaves the dreams of a young girl with the reality of survival in a harsh, unforgiving environment. There are moments of sweet tenderness, occasions that offer hope for a family that won't give up; a family that stays to overcome the enormous obstacles that are thrown their way.
Once I opened this book, I could not put it down. It is a wonderful, powerful story. Buy it today.
“Like Dust I Rise” gave me a real sense of the struggles people faced during the Dust Bowl and an admiration for their strength and courage.
Ginny Rorby is an expert storyteller who weaves the dreams of a young girl with the reality of survival in a harsh, unforgiving environment. There are moments of sweet tenderness, occasions that offer hope for a family that won't give up; a family that stays to overcome the enormous obstacles that are thrown their way.
Once I opened this book, I could not put it down. It is a wonderful, powerful story. Buy it today.
December 9, 2021
I like to say that everything I know, I learned from a novel.
You will learn a lot in Like Dust I Rise, and it is skin-crawling, breath-holding, delightful learning. Nona sets out with her family, traveling from Chicago to Dalhart, Texas, to homestead. She's a curious, feisty little girl, and in the course of the novel, she grows into a brave and ingenious young woman, determined, in spite of the odds, to be a pilot.
First, she must endure a host of troubles, from failing crops, dust storms that kill, to a plague of rabbits. The troubles at times feel unbearable, but that's one joy of reading--we get to suffer from the distance of the written page.
I learned a lot about the Dust Bowl reading this book (I had never realized the government's unwitting role), but I also learned to admire and despair over Nona's family, and I grew to love young Nona.
Rorby is one of my favorite writers and you will not be disappointed by this latest one.
You will learn a lot in Like Dust I Rise, and it is skin-crawling, breath-holding, delightful learning. Nona sets out with her family, traveling from Chicago to Dalhart, Texas, to homestead. She's a curious, feisty little girl, and in the course of the novel, she grows into a brave and ingenious young woman, determined, in spite of the odds, to be a pilot.
First, she must endure a host of troubles, from failing crops, dust storms that kill, to a plague of rabbits. The troubles at times feel unbearable, but that's one joy of reading--we get to suffer from the distance of the written page.
I learned a lot about the Dust Bowl reading this book (I had never realized the government's unwitting role), but I also learned to admire and despair over Nona's family, and I grew to love young Nona.
Rorby is one of my favorite writers and you will not be disappointed by this latest one.
February 15, 2022
I received a free copy of this ebook as an early reviewer on LibraryThing website.
This story spans the period 1929 through 1941, the time of the stock market crash, the Great Depression, and the Dust Bowl era. The time of Tom Joad and the Grapes of Wrath, about a family forced off their farm on the Oklahoma plains to try and make a better life in California.
Like Dust, I Rise is about a family who stayed on the plains of Texas for better and worse.
In 1929, Winona Williams is just nine or ten, living with her family in Chicago i n an area known as Back of the Yards, i.e. the stock yards and slaughter houses, with all their attendant smells etc.
Her father, Owen, fed up with slaughtering hogs all day, decides to move to the plains of Texas and be the farmer he has always dreamed of being. Winona’s mother dreamed of being a dress designer and/or maker, but gave it up when she married. The author through Winona’s mother, Glenny, pointedly makes the point to Winona, that in those days, women who married gave up any aspirations. Full stop. So, Winona, cued by her mother, promises herself to not marry if that means she will have to give up her dream of becoming a pilot like Amelia Earhart.
Imagine Glenny’s further disappointment when she and the children arrive in Texas to find they will have to live in a dugout, a hole in the ground, until Owen can build them a proper house. From there, conditions do get a little better with good weather, a decent wheat crop and a completed house, but then conditions deteriorate to the point where we find this family in the middle of the dust bowl, nearly starving, barely hanging on until the rain finally falls in 1938.
During this ten year survival story, we see the daily dust storms piling dirt to roof top level. It’s almost like reading descriptions of winter blizzards, except that unlike snow, dirt doesn’t melt. It has to be shoveled away from house doors, barn doors, and any thing else needed to carry on daily life. We see the foods of last resort, like ground up tumble weeds, or a kind of pan cake made from soda crackers. We also see the impact of these conditions on the relationships between the family members, and between the family and the local community.
This is a story of dreams, perseverance, hardships, deprivation, and ultimately, survival, and dreams fulfilled. This story wasn’t crafted to tug at our heart strings. Oh, those poor people! The story was crafted to support our dreams. If you have a dream or are in the middle of trying to make your dream come true, stick with it. Suffer whatever hardships or sacrifices necessary to make your dream come true. If it comes true, you’ll be all the more happier for it, and if it doesn’t, you’ll still be a better person for having tried.
Read this book. It will enrich your life.
This story spans the period 1929 through 1941, the time of the stock market crash, the Great Depression, and the Dust Bowl era. The time of Tom Joad and the Grapes of Wrath, about a family forced off their farm on the Oklahoma plains to try and make a better life in California.
Like Dust, I Rise is about a family who stayed on the plains of Texas for better and worse.
In 1929, Winona Williams is just nine or ten, living with her family in Chicago i n an area known as Back of the Yards, i.e. the stock yards and slaughter houses, with all their attendant smells etc.
Her father, Owen, fed up with slaughtering hogs all day, decides to move to the plains of Texas and be the farmer he has always dreamed of being. Winona’s mother dreamed of being a dress designer and/or maker, but gave it up when she married. The author through Winona’s mother, Glenny, pointedly makes the point to Winona, that in those days, women who married gave up any aspirations. Full stop. So, Winona, cued by her mother, promises herself to not marry if that means she will have to give up her dream of becoming a pilot like Amelia Earhart.
Imagine Glenny’s further disappointment when she and the children arrive in Texas to find they will have to live in a dugout, a hole in the ground, until Owen can build them a proper house. From there, conditions do get a little better with good weather, a decent wheat crop and a completed house, but then conditions deteriorate to the point where we find this family in the middle of the dust bowl, nearly starving, barely hanging on until the rain finally falls in 1938.
During this ten year survival story, we see the daily dust storms piling dirt to roof top level. It’s almost like reading descriptions of winter blizzards, except that unlike snow, dirt doesn’t melt. It has to be shoveled away from house doors, barn doors, and any thing else needed to carry on daily life. We see the foods of last resort, like ground up tumble weeds, or a kind of pan cake made from soda crackers. We also see the impact of these conditions on the relationships between the family members, and between the family and the local community.
This is a story of dreams, perseverance, hardships, deprivation, and ultimately, survival, and dreams fulfilled. This story wasn’t crafted to tug at our heart strings. Oh, those poor people! The story was crafted to support our dreams. If you have a dream or are in the middle of trying to make your dream come true, stick with it. Suffer whatever hardships or sacrifices necessary to make your dream come true. If it comes true, you’ll be all the more happier for it, and if it doesn’t, you’ll still be a better person for having tried.
Read this book. It will enrich your life.
December 13, 2021
I did not want to read this book about the dust bowls and depression and despair. But I received a copy and began to read and read I did. I did not stop until I reached the end. There was no depression or despair or at least there was no time to have those feelings. You were too busy keeping up with dust storms and a family not willing to give up. It’s a book for young teens on up. The issues were complex but dealt with with alacrity. The farmers because they had nothing to lose were going toe to toe with bankers. Did we miss that in 2008? Rorby talks about the government intervening too little and too late, and about the farmers growing the wrong crops on the wrong land. She talks about the poor city folks who came from the big cities to get away from the slums, the smells and the lack of a future. These were families held together by a thread so thin that a weak link could split a family apart and even then the week link was handled with kindness. But Rorby lifts us out of depression and despair with the strength and dreams and empathy of hard working adults, and children learning lessons way beyond their years. In between dust storms, our young heroine is encouraged by the compassion of a few men that she encounters in her life, to follow her dream of becoming a pilot like Amelia Earhart. And then, World War II.
Author Ginny Rorby/Like Dust I Rise
Author Ginny Rorby/Like Dust I Rise
December 9, 2021
Like Dust, I Rise (Author: Ginny Rorby)
Book Review by Eric H. Bowen
Like Dust, I Rise is a new novel from established Young Adult/Middle Grade author Ginny Rorby. Unlike the colorful covers of her other youth books such as Hurt Go Happy and Lost in the River of Grass, the cover picture we’re greeted with is a somber black & white image of a Depression-era girl in the dusty bedroom of a ramshackle New Mexico home. It’s appropriate, because this story is dark. Never gratuitously ugly, but dark.
The story is told through the eyes of Winona Williams, a precocious ten year old in 1928 who dreams of someday becoming a pilot like her heroine, Amelia Earhart. But she lives a meager existence in a poor neighborhood behind the Chicago stockyards, and her father Owen comes home to their boarding house every night spotted with blood and smelling of pig guts. “Papa hates his work and I hate it for him. He’s been talking about leaving Chicago since Owie was born three and a half years ago. He was a farrier in the Great War, but says there are now so many automobiles in Chicago, the only person left with a horse to shoe is the ragman.” But Owen hears stories of an enormous ranch on the Great Plains of Texas which might yet be able to use his skills. Buying a well-used Conestoga wagon and four old horses bound for the glue factory he sets off with his wife’s elegant furniture, relics of a ‘comfortable’ life years ago, for the XIT ranch in the Texas panhandle. Two of the horses die on the way, but he and the furniture-laden wagon make it to Dalhart, Texas after a six-month trek.
Only to find that the XIT is no more; it has been broken up and sold off. But Owen finds a situation where he can provide labor for an elderly farmer named Noel Andersen who has no heir and no wife, and receive clear title to the 640 acre farm upon Noel’s death. He wires to his wife and children in Chicago to come by train and join him. Upon hearing the details of the arrangement his wife bursts into tears, exclaiming that they will be no better than sharecroppers. She’s further embittered when she first sees their new “home”…a dusty, sod-covered, one-room dugout. “As my eyes adjust to the dimness, it becomes clear why it’s called a dugout. The room has been hollowed out of a hill…. The only light comes from the window in the sod wall. The earth floor is swept to a hard, smooth finish. Beams laid from wall to wall support the peaked board roof….” Still the first year goes well enough; a real home is built and the farm produces a good crop of winter wheat which Owen and Noel are able to harvest and bring to market before prices begin to collapse. Owen is all set to take out a mortgage to expand their operation, but Noel wisely vetoes the proposal.
For the fat harvest of 1929 is followed in short order by the stock market crash, the Depression…and the Dust Bowl. Ms. Rorby draws on actual journal accounts of settlers who lived through that time to bring the string of natural disasters to life with vivid descriptions: Blizzards, cyclones, and finally the dust storms severe enough to bury man, beast, and even vehicles alive. “A towering cloud rolls toward us from the west. My heart thrills. Rain! But the cloud is a strange brownish yellow color, and it’s moving faster than any storm I’ve ever seen….Sam [her horse] screams in fear and races across the field toward home, steam blasting from his nostrils. I hear Gracie wailing….The earth looks like it’s crumbling away behind us faster than Sam can run. I face forward, but can’t see where we’re headed. I hope Sam finds the gate….” From 1933 to 1938 there is virtually no rain received in the Panhandle of Texas; it’s been called “the worst environmental disaster in the United States.” Will Winona be able to keep her dreams of ever becoming a pilot alive?
In reading this book, I was struck with comparisons to two great classics of literature which I would encourage all young people to be familiar with: Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink and John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Like Dust, I Rise echoes the former in its opening chapters and segues to become more like the latter as the years pass on. I would hesitate to recommend this book to pre-teens; its content is as gritty as its milieu. It is an unvarnished look at farm life during hard times in the years before electricity and modern conveniences. Disasters hit. People die. Beloved animals die. Desperate “Okies” attempt to rob the farmhouse when they believe no one is home. Members of the family grow sick and die. And the family unit itself is strained to the point of separation, in the end.
Still, these are difficult but real truths which real people endured, and the book is honest and forthright about them all. And so I would strongly recommend this book for teenagers and young adults who want to make a connection with the experiences of a generation who endured so much and by now has almost completely passed from this earth. Although those with arachnophobia might want to skip chapter 33!
A final note: I received an advance copy of this book in consideration of assisting the author with research about train travel in 1929. However, there was no inducement or expectation of providing a review and neither the author nor publisher (Black Rose) has provided any incentive or compensation in exchange for my review.
TL;DR: It’s good. Read it.
Book Review by Eric H. Bowen
Like Dust, I Rise is a new novel from established Young Adult/Middle Grade author Ginny Rorby. Unlike the colorful covers of her other youth books such as Hurt Go Happy and Lost in the River of Grass, the cover picture we’re greeted with is a somber black & white image of a Depression-era girl in the dusty bedroom of a ramshackle New Mexico home. It’s appropriate, because this story is dark. Never gratuitously ugly, but dark.
The story is told through the eyes of Winona Williams, a precocious ten year old in 1928 who dreams of someday becoming a pilot like her heroine, Amelia Earhart. But she lives a meager existence in a poor neighborhood behind the Chicago stockyards, and her father Owen comes home to their boarding house every night spotted with blood and smelling of pig guts. “Papa hates his work and I hate it for him. He’s been talking about leaving Chicago since Owie was born three and a half years ago. He was a farrier in the Great War, but says there are now so many automobiles in Chicago, the only person left with a horse to shoe is the ragman.” But Owen hears stories of an enormous ranch on the Great Plains of Texas which might yet be able to use his skills. Buying a well-used Conestoga wagon and four old horses bound for the glue factory he sets off with his wife’s elegant furniture, relics of a ‘comfortable’ life years ago, for the XIT ranch in the Texas panhandle. Two of the horses die on the way, but he and the furniture-laden wagon make it to Dalhart, Texas after a six-month trek.
Only to find that the XIT is no more; it has been broken up and sold off. But Owen finds a situation where he can provide labor for an elderly farmer named Noel Andersen who has no heir and no wife, and receive clear title to the 640 acre farm upon Noel’s death. He wires to his wife and children in Chicago to come by train and join him. Upon hearing the details of the arrangement his wife bursts into tears, exclaiming that they will be no better than sharecroppers. She’s further embittered when she first sees their new “home”…a dusty, sod-covered, one-room dugout. “As my eyes adjust to the dimness, it becomes clear why it’s called a dugout. The room has been hollowed out of a hill…. The only light comes from the window in the sod wall. The earth floor is swept to a hard, smooth finish. Beams laid from wall to wall support the peaked board roof….” Still the first year goes well enough; a real home is built and the farm produces a good crop of winter wheat which Owen and Noel are able to harvest and bring to market before prices begin to collapse. Owen is all set to take out a mortgage to expand their operation, but Noel wisely vetoes the proposal.
For the fat harvest of 1929 is followed in short order by the stock market crash, the Depression…and the Dust Bowl. Ms. Rorby draws on actual journal accounts of settlers who lived through that time to bring the string of natural disasters to life with vivid descriptions: Blizzards, cyclones, and finally the dust storms severe enough to bury man, beast, and even vehicles alive. “A towering cloud rolls toward us from the west. My heart thrills. Rain! But the cloud is a strange brownish yellow color, and it’s moving faster than any storm I’ve ever seen….Sam [her horse] screams in fear and races across the field toward home, steam blasting from his nostrils. I hear Gracie wailing….The earth looks like it’s crumbling away behind us faster than Sam can run. I face forward, but can’t see where we’re headed. I hope Sam finds the gate….” From 1933 to 1938 there is virtually no rain received in the Panhandle of Texas; it’s been called “the worst environmental disaster in the United States.” Will Winona be able to keep her dreams of ever becoming a pilot alive?
In reading this book, I was struck with comparisons to two great classics of literature which I would encourage all young people to be familiar with: Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink and John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Like Dust, I Rise echoes the former in its opening chapters and segues to become more like the latter as the years pass on. I would hesitate to recommend this book to pre-teens; its content is as gritty as its milieu. It is an unvarnished look at farm life during hard times in the years before electricity and modern conveniences. Disasters hit. People die. Beloved animals die. Desperate “Okies” attempt to rob the farmhouse when they believe no one is home. Members of the family grow sick and die. And the family unit itself is strained to the point of separation, in the end.
Still, these are difficult but real truths which real people endured, and the book is honest and forthright about them all. And so I would strongly recommend this book for teenagers and young adults who want to make a connection with the experiences of a generation who endured so much and by now has almost completely passed from this earth. Although those with arachnophobia might want to skip chapter 33!
A final note: I received an advance copy of this book in consideration of assisting the author with research about train travel in 1929. However, there was no inducement or expectation of providing a review and neither the author nor publisher (Black Rose) has provided any incentive or compensation in exchange for my review.
TL;DR: It’s good. Read it.
December 10, 2021
Loved reading this ! Having grown up in Chicago, I was fascinated first by the depiction of life behind the Stockyards - sinking into a young family's strengths and fears as they moved on to a new beginning, only to face Biblical challenges on their Texas farm. The Dust Bowl has been depicted in Grapes of Wrath, its adaptations for film and theatre, in now famous photos, et al., but here, the reader experiences the era from Nona's point of view. Smart and intuitive, Nona cares for her siblings, the animals, and her struggling parents with a strength of character that is cut from the same fabric as Amelia Earhart, whose concurrent journey inspires her. Rorby's well researched, no nonsense crafting of the tale brings us along as co-survivors - we too can "rise" with Nona - Read it !
December 9, 2021
Like Dust, I Rise is a coming-of-age, historical novel based in the Dust Bowl era. I fell in love with the characters, especially Nona the young protagonist, who supports her father's dream of homesteading while secretly holding fast to her own dream of becoming a female pilot in the tradition of Amelia Earhart. The history of the Dust Bowl, woven seamlessly into the story of this family's struggle to survive, makes an informative read. Ginny Rorby has the unique ability to capture characters authentically in the most tender way, making readers believe in them, root for them, admire them.
December 25, 2021
I really enjoyed it! I've liked everything Ms Rorby writes, but this one in particular really got me invested. Definitely a page-turner. I suggest teachers use this book instead of Grapes of Wrath for teaching about the Great Depression. This is much more engaging and relatable. All the characters were so distinct, and the pacing of each "adventure" I thought was just right. The descriptions were poignant and powerful, without ever being overwritten. I feel like I know a lot more about that period of history now. I also loved how the story linked into historical events related to aeronautics, particularly women in flight.
January 4, 2022
Like Dust, I Rise is one fine book you'll be glad to share with the teen or young adult in your circle of family and friends. Rorby writes with lean elegance of life, love, and loss during America's Great Depression. Hard times, indeed, but the narrator, Winona Williams, has a heart that's up to the hardship she overcame as a new farmer's daughter with a big dream. The book's unconventional but satisfying conclusion warmed my heart.
December 29, 2021
Having only a little knowledge of the Dust Bowl (I think it wasn’t covered much in my history classes?), I feel like I went into this story blind. It is heartbreaking in the most beautiful way. I kept trying to imagine myself living the life of Nona and her family, and it’s simply unimaginable the hardships they had to endure. I kept setting down this book and looking around at my life with a new perspective, feeling like I really have everything I could possibly want or need. I will absolutely be keeping this book in mind to hand to my kiddo when we cover this time period. Ginny Rorby does a fantastic job of pulling the reader into the experience.
I received a free ARC ebook through LibraryThing’s early reviewers program. All opinions are my own.
I received a free ARC ebook through LibraryThing’s early reviewers program. All opinions are my own.
February 7, 2022
Ginny Rorby told a story of tragedy, poverty, loss, death, drought and so much dirt and dust; and, still the underlying positive force was love of family, continuing hope, working together and following your dream. This was an Amazon free offer. Good read
December 20, 2021
I was given a free copy of "Like Dust, I Rise", from Black Rose Writing and Ginny Rorby. Make sure you have tissues handy. I knew of the dust bowl, but this book really made the feelings and experiences of the people come alive. This book was very well written and was hard to out down. I would recommend this book to anyone that likes to read about history. You will learn a lot about how people lived and survived during the dust bowl.
December 9, 2021
Winona 'Nona' Williams wants nothing more than to be like her idol Amelia Earhart. Her parents don't think much of her ambitions. Girls don't become pilots. Her mother tells her in so many words that after marriage, a girl's dreams need to be put on a shelf and likely forgotten. Nona's mother wanted to be a dress designer, and instead she's the wife of a Chicago stockyard worker with his own dreams of becoming a farmer. Nona's father does head west, finds a farm to work, and sends for the family (which is about to increase in size). Dalhart, Texas is no booming metropolis, but the family makes a go of it through droughts and depression and locusts and cyclones. Nona keeps her dream (mostly to herself) even as she supports her parents and cares for her siblings. It's a story with echoes of the Little House series (though, of course, set years after) with an admirable heroine who has a seemingly out of reach dream. A departure for Ginny Rorby whose past novels have dealt touchingly with human-animal relationships in the modern world, "Like Dust" is excellent historical fiction for young fans of Jenni Holm's Turtle books or teen fans of Kirby Larson Hattie as well as adults seeking a good read that is...uplifting in several senses of the word.
December 12, 2021
An interesting story of a girl who was born near the feedlots and slaughterhouses of Chicago, whose family migrates to Texas when she is ten years old. We follow her from this age until she is about 22. She lives through the depression, the dust bowl, the natural disasters and tries to keep her family together.
I got a free copy from the publisher, I wasn't required to post a review.
I got a free copy from the publisher, I wasn't required to post a review.
June 13, 2022
Like Dust, I Rise a novel by Ginny Rorby is an uplifting story written in the first-person
voice of young Winona “Nona” Williams. The story begins in Chicago, 1928, when Nona is eleven years old.
Nona’s father works at a slaughterhouse. He comes home to their rooms at a boarding house, reeking of blood and raw meat. His job is depressing and he wants more out of life than killing animals. He wants to work in fresh air. He leaves Chicago for Texas when he hears of an opportunity to have their own land, homesteading in the Great Plains. Nona’s mother is hesitant to leave the known, but unhappily follows her husband with Nona and her two siblings to a scrubby ranch near Dalhart, Texas.
Inspired by Amelia Earhart’s heroic flights, Nona clings to the dream of becoming a pilot. She saves every penny toward the hope of learning to fly. She’s an optimistic girl, hopeful that her dad will succeed in work that he likes, and that her mother will eventually be happy with their new living arrangement.
Once on the ranch, the family manages to build a small house so they can live in something other than a dugout. The first year’s crop of wheat is encouragingly good. But then their dreams turn to dust, literally. Between the Dustbowl and The Great Depression, the family barely manages to survive. Her father, ever hopeful that things will turn around, works feverishly to eek out a living for his family. Her mother, never pleased with their desolate prairie life, struggles with trying to keep house in an environment that is constantly gritty and where food is scarce. People are dying of dust pneumonia. It’s impossible to grow crops with the constant sand and dust storms.
In the meantime, Nona clings to her dream of flying. She squirrels away pennies so that some day she can afford flying lessons. She takes on many responsibilities at home, trying to encourage her mother to accept their situation.
Like Dust, I Rise is a well written account of the Dustbowl and Depression days. I appreciated Nona’s strength and determination. I ached for her father, seemingly beaten at every turn. I became impatient with her mother, but realize that her character was not unusual for a woman at that time finding herself in a position she didn’t want, in a place she hated. Like Dust, I Rise is a story of determination, endurance and survival.
voice of young Winona “Nona” Williams. The story begins in Chicago, 1928, when Nona is eleven years old.
Nona’s father works at a slaughterhouse. He comes home to their rooms at a boarding house, reeking of blood and raw meat. His job is depressing and he wants more out of life than killing animals. He wants to work in fresh air. He leaves Chicago for Texas when he hears of an opportunity to have their own land, homesteading in the Great Plains. Nona’s mother is hesitant to leave the known, but unhappily follows her husband with Nona and her two siblings to a scrubby ranch near Dalhart, Texas.
Inspired by Amelia Earhart’s heroic flights, Nona clings to the dream of becoming a pilot. She saves every penny toward the hope of learning to fly. She’s an optimistic girl, hopeful that her dad will succeed in work that he likes, and that her mother will eventually be happy with their new living arrangement.
Once on the ranch, the family manages to build a small house so they can live in something other than a dugout. The first year’s crop of wheat is encouragingly good. But then their dreams turn to dust, literally. Between the Dustbowl and The Great Depression, the family barely manages to survive. Her father, ever hopeful that things will turn around, works feverishly to eek out a living for his family. Her mother, never pleased with their desolate prairie life, struggles with trying to keep house in an environment that is constantly gritty and where food is scarce. People are dying of dust pneumonia. It’s impossible to grow crops with the constant sand and dust storms.
In the meantime, Nona clings to her dream of flying. She squirrels away pennies so that some day she can afford flying lessons. She takes on many responsibilities at home, trying to encourage her mother to accept their situation.
Like Dust, I Rise is a well written account of the Dustbowl and Depression days. I appreciated Nona’s strength and determination. I ached for her father, seemingly beaten at every turn. I became impatient with her mother, but realize that her character was not unusual for a woman at that time finding herself in a position she didn’t want, in a place she hated. Like Dust, I Rise is a story of determination, endurance and survival.
October 27, 2024
What a wonderful surprise this book was. The story centres on young Winona Williams and her family in the 1920s, trying to escape life in the yards of Chicago to follow her father’s dream of farming in Texas, and the struggles they face in their new home. I found it completely absorbing from the first page and couldn’t put it down.
All the characters are fully developed and realistic, from her dreamy father who tries so hard to make it work, her poor mother who looks back on her freedom and opportunities during the First World War and despises life on a farm, to the farm owner they work with and who becomes a member of the family. There is so much history packed into this book (life in poverty both in the cities and country, the depression, orphans packed onto trains from New York for a new life, the push for women’s rights, among others) that it really shouldn’t work as well as it does. It feels as though so much is pushed in there that it will hold back the story but it never does, they all fit together seamlessly and add to the power of the book. The most compelling parts for me were around life in the Dust Bowl - the author makes you really feel how horrific it must have been to live with sand everywhere, drought, terrifying dust storms, and the devastating effect on crops and income.
Winona (or Nona, as she’s known to the family) is a superb character. She follows everything she can find on Amelia Earhart and dreams of being a pilot despite the restrictions on women at the time, but she’s also so committed to life on the farm and doing all she can to help through some terrible trials. Her strength and resilience in the face of any obstacle are gripping and I would love to see a follow up about her life as an adult. She has all the makings of a classic child character and this book deserves to be well known and widely read.
I really can’t recommend this book highly enough. I’m going straight back to read it a second time – I read it very quickly the first time because I was desperate to find out what was going to happen so now I want to go back and savour it a little more slowly. An amazing book.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy in return for an honest review.
All the characters are fully developed and realistic, from her dreamy father who tries so hard to make it work, her poor mother who looks back on her freedom and opportunities during the First World War and despises life on a farm, to the farm owner they work with and who becomes a member of the family. There is so much history packed into this book (life in poverty both in the cities and country, the depression, orphans packed onto trains from New York for a new life, the push for women’s rights, among others) that it really shouldn’t work as well as it does. It feels as though so much is pushed in there that it will hold back the story but it never does, they all fit together seamlessly and add to the power of the book. The most compelling parts for me were around life in the Dust Bowl - the author makes you really feel how horrific it must have been to live with sand everywhere, drought, terrifying dust storms, and the devastating effect on crops and income.
Winona (or Nona, as she’s known to the family) is a superb character. She follows everything she can find on Amelia Earhart and dreams of being a pilot despite the restrictions on women at the time, but she’s also so committed to life on the farm and doing all she can to help through some terrible trials. Her strength and resilience in the face of any obstacle are gripping and I would love to see a follow up about her life as an adult. She has all the makings of a classic child character and this book deserves to be well known and widely read.
I really can’t recommend this book highly enough. I’m going straight back to read it a second time – I read it very quickly the first time because I was desperate to find out what was going to happen so now I want to go back and savour it a little more slowly. An amazing book.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy in return for an honest review.
January 12, 2022
This book, which takes us into the heart of the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression of the 1930s, has, on its cover, a photograph of a child by Dorothea Lange. And Like Dust, I Rise is the word-equivalent of Lange's photographic documentation of that time and place. With power and sorrow and hope, it fleshes out the lives of those remarkable people who left the despair and the failure of the social fabric of our cities and trekked to the Great Plains to carve out a new life. This story of one such family is told by a young girl, Nona, who longs to become a pilot, like Amelia Earhart, to rise above the earth, even as she learns to live with endless waves of drought and storm, as the once-fertile plain is destroyed by the very plows that were supposed to bring success.
This is a wonder of a book. Unlike almost all the historical fiction I know, particularly books for young people (which this ostensibly is), its characters are not cyphers, with events and feelings created to teach a moment in our time. Nona and her family are alive and breathing and full of surprises, far far more real than anything you can imagine except those photographs by Lange.
Crisis is hard to absorb by reading. The fears whip by so quickly, you turn the page and one is gone, and the next and next are just words. By a fluke, I read this in the midst of a freak storm in the foothills where I live. I read it by flashlight, the sand whirling on the page and filling the sodhouse with grit while trees fell around my own house, taking out the power for 15 days, blocking roads and driveways. Many of us had no water or food for our animals. A neighbor’s house was utterly destroyed, much as the tornadoes of sand took out people’s homes in Nona’s Dust Bowl. I read on, feeling every shudder as another tree went down.
I've learned over time, hoping I was wrong, how most human beings do awful things – to themselves, to others, to the planet. Always have. Always will. But, thank the stars, there are also always the Nonas and the Mr. Andersens who see so clearly, give their hearts to the land and to survival, who go on loving and hoping. Like dust, they rise.
This is a wonder of a book. Unlike almost all the historical fiction I know, particularly books for young people (which this ostensibly is), its characters are not cyphers, with events and feelings created to teach a moment in our time. Nona and her family are alive and breathing and full of surprises, far far more real than anything you can imagine except those photographs by Lange.
Crisis is hard to absorb by reading. The fears whip by so quickly, you turn the page and one is gone, and the next and next are just words. By a fluke, I read this in the midst of a freak storm in the foothills where I live. I read it by flashlight, the sand whirling on the page and filling the sodhouse with grit while trees fell around my own house, taking out the power for 15 days, blocking roads and driveways. Many of us had no water or food for our animals. A neighbor’s house was utterly destroyed, much as the tornadoes of sand took out people’s homes in Nona’s Dust Bowl. I read on, feeling every shudder as another tree went down.
I've learned over time, hoping I was wrong, how most human beings do awful things – to themselves, to others, to the planet. Always have. Always will. But, thank the stars, there are also always the Nonas and the Mr. Andersens who see so clearly, give their hearts to the land and to survival, who go on loving and hoping. Like dust, they rise.
October 6, 2022
Like Dust I Rise is a fictionalized account of life in America during the Great Depression and Second World War. Seen through the eyes of a young girl, Winona, readers experience the difficulties for the working poor of Chicago's stockyards and slaughterhouse district and the Texas plains during the Dust Bowl.
Realistic and well-researched, Like Dust I Rise reads like the memoirs of someone who has lived through dust storms, rabbit and locust devastation, and the extreme impoverishment brought on by years of unrelenting drought. Hopeful, and with the dream of becoming a pilot like Amelia Earhart, Winona bravely copes with the daily challenges of farm life as her parent's marriage is strained to the breaking point by hardship and loss. She quietly leads her family through stalwart perseverance, eventually realizing her dream of becoming a pilot.
Historically accurate, though the author does offer a disclaimer for artistic license, the story is compelling and difficult to put down. It is a wonderful teaching tool for what people can learn during times of severe deprivation when survival means making do with what you have at hand. Also, a story of faith, in oneself and in each other, that highlights a constant love one daughter has for her father as her mother abandons the family, herself having lost faith. Hard work, trust, as well as faith are clearly demonstrated as a family pulls together so they all can survive.
I highly recommend this book to young and old alike!
Realistic and well-researched, Like Dust I Rise reads like the memoirs of someone who has lived through dust storms, rabbit and locust devastation, and the extreme impoverishment brought on by years of unrelenting drought. Hopeful, and with the dream of becoming a pilot like Amelia Earhart, Winona bravely copes with the daily challenges of farm life as her parent's marriage is strained to the breaking point by hardship and loss. She quietly leads her family through stalwart perseverance, eventually realizing her dream of becoming a pilot.
Historically accurate, though the author does offer a disclaimer for artistic license, the story is compelling and difficult to put down. It is a wonderful teaching tool for what people can learn during times of severe deprivation when survival means making do with what you have at hand. Also, a story of faith, in oneself and in each other, that highlights a constant love one daughter has for her father as her mother abandons the family, herself having lost faith. Hard work, trust, as well as faith are clearly demonstrated as a family pulls together so they all can survive.
I highly recommend this book to young and old alike!
August 18, 2023
Excellent read about the Dust Bowl yrs. & one family who lived thru them
The family originally lived in Chicago & the father worked in the Stockyards,but wanted something better.
He left his family behind & traveled to Texas, eventually sending for them
The oldest child was a girl & at the age of 10,knew she wanted to be a pilot.
Her mother never did accept the Dust Bowl way of life & eventually,left her family & went to live with her sisters family.
The daughter,along with her father & other siblings, stayed on the farm,till her 2Oth birthday,before becoming a pilot & working for the Government.
Her father,sister & brother continued to farm.
Some characters in the book,were based on real persons & the town in Texas was a real one.
The characters were interesting & played well off each other.
The book will definitely hold your interest & will make you wonder,if you would have survived this way of life ?
The family originally lived in Chicago & the father worked in the Stockyards,but wanted something better.
He left his family behind & traveled to Texas, eventually sending for them
The oldest child was a girl & at the age of 10,knew she wanted to be a pilot.
Her mother never did accept the Dust Bowl way of life & eventually,left her family & went to live with her sisters family.
The daughter,along with her father & other siblings, stayed on the farm,till her 2Oth birthday,before becoming a pilot & working for the Government.
Her father,sister & brother continued to farm.
Some characters in the book,were based on real persons & the town in Texas was a real one.
The characters were interesting & played well off each other.
The book will definitely hold your interest & will make you wonder,if you would have survived this way of life ?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 31, 2022
This is a story about the trials and tribulations of living in the 1930s depression and dust bowl.
A family moves from Chicago to a farm in Texas. The father quits his job in the stockyard so the family will have a better life. The mother is extremely reluctant. Nona, the oldest is inspired by Amelia Earhart's heroic flights and dreams of becoming a pilot.
Just as the family gets settled in their new home, the depression impacts their lives.
The author makes the feelings & experiences of their unsettled lives come alive. Just as much as the family was constantly living through the dust storms, no rain, ruined crops, the reader feels battling the elements. Breathing dust was difficult & painful for them & us. Prodding and cleaning the mounds of dust and then starting over again was unbearable, too.
A family moves from Chicago to a farm in Texas. The father quits his job in the stockyard so the family will have a better life. The mother is extremely reluctant. Nona, the oldest is inspired by Amelia Earhart's heroic flights and dreams of becoming a pilot.
Just as the family gets settled in their new home, the depression impacts their lives.
The author makes the feelings & experiences of their unsettled lives come alive. Just as much as the family was constantly living through the dust storms, no rain, ruined crops, the reader feels battling the elements. Breathing dust was difficult & painful for them & us. Prodding and cleaning the mounds of dust and then starting over again was unbearable, too.
January 28, 2023
I was totalling blown away by this profound book of a struggling young family. Everyday they would do whatever was needed to survive living next to the stock yards in Chicago. This was a cruel and terrible life but still there was love with family and neighbors.
Realizing that the future living in these conditions was bleak, the young husband and father wanted to leave Chicago and try his luck farming in Texas. Months later when the little family were altogether in Texas the profound story becomes something that will make you hold your breath anxious and worried. The oldest daughter is Nona, and you might find like I did that she is an unforgettable character who will steal your heart. I loved this book.
Realizing that the future living in these conditions was bleak, the young husband and father wanted to leave Chicago and try his luck farming in Texas. Months later when the little family were altogether in Texas the profound story becomes something that will make you hold your breath anxious and worried. The oldest daughter is Nona, and you might find like I did that she is an unforgettable character who will steal your heart. I loved this book.
December 30, 2021
Sweat, Dust, and Hope
Like Dust, I Rise is a breathtakingly paced story, set during the brutal dust bowl, told from the perspective of Winona "Nona" Williams, who stands alongside Scout Finch and Jo March in her grit and determination.
The other characters are well drawn and developed, particularly Nona's mother, whom readers will regard with mixed feelings. (Great book club discussion all by itself.)
LDIR is the ultimate story of survival, both collective and individual. The pages fly, all the way to the satisfying conclusion.
Brava, Ginny Rorby!
Like Dust, I Rise is a breathtakingly paced story, set during the brutal dust bowl, told from the perspective of Winona "Nona" Williams, who stands alongside Scout Finch and Jo March in her grit and determination.
The other characters are well drawn and developed, particularly Nona's mother, whom readers will regard with mixed feelings. (Great book club discussion all by itself.)
LDIR is the ultimate story of survival, both collective and individual. The pages fly, all the way to the satisfying conclusion.
Brava, Ginny Rorby!
February 3, 2022
Like Dust
I knew nothing about the Chicago stockyards or the Great Dust Bowl. But I really enjoyed learning about them in this easy to read book about one family’s life in those places. The young girl, Nona, takes us along with her as she grows with her family. You can smell the stockyards and feel the grit of the sand as it invades The Great Plains.
A young girl who lives a hard life but never gives up her dream of becoming a pilot. Her story is heart rending and endearing.
I knew nothing about the Chicago stockyards or the Great Dust Bowl. But I really enjoyed learning about them in this easy to read book about one family’s life in those places. The young girl, Nona, takes us along with her as she grows with her family. You can smell the stockyards and feel the grit of the sand as it invades The Great Plains.
A young girl who lives a hard life but never gives up her dream of becoming a pilot. Her story is heart rending and endearing.
July 26, 2023
I've had this book on my TBR list for a very long time. On a random Sunday, I decided to start it and it's been on my mind since the first pages. It is so full of heartache and exhaustion that one has to wonder just how folks survived back then. Could we do it now if we had to? I wonder.
Despite the often bleak nature of the book, I found myself loving the entire thing. Every detail could be felt in the telling of each scene and each scene often ran the gamete of emotions. I found myself connecting to each character as I would have at whatever age or life stage they were in. It was a journey.
Despite the often bleak nature of the book, I found myself loving the entire thing. Every detail could be felt in the telling of each scene and each scene often ran the gamete of emotions. I found myself connecting to each character as I would have at whatever age or life stage they were in. It was a journey.
April 30, 2022
must read
I so loved this book. This was both sad and happy things that went on in the book. They suffered through the dust storms yes . ( we had our own last night) . The cow that follows her little sister around,that’s so cute and reminds me of when I was on my Grandmas farm. We kids could do that same kind of thing with the different animals over the many years growing up. Special memories.
I so loved this book. This was both sad and happy things that went on in the book. They suffered through the dust storms yes . ( we had our own last night) . The cow that follows her little sister around,that’s so cute and reminds me of when I was on my Grandmas farm. We kids could do that same kind of thing with the different animals over the many years growing up. Special memories.
December 25, 2021
This is a lovely, hauntingly beautiful book, a portrait in tragedy and ultimate triumph of a determined young woman in the midst of one of the worst situations the nation has ever faced. It evokes deep love and abiding faith in human aspiration, hope, and courage in the face of despair,. Nicely done.
January 9, 2022
One of the best and most well written books I've read in a long time. I felt as though I was there in Texas with that family, experiencing the losses, the ups and downs and overwhelming grief that took place during this time in our country's history.
I highly recommend this book to Jr high through adult level readers. It's an absolute must read!
I highly recommend this book to Jr high through adult level readers. It's an absolute must read!
January 28, 2022
Dust Bowl Lives
Ginny Rorby, Thank you for this lovely story from Nona's heart and soul!
Farming is hard work. It's hard to imagine the losses the drought and
dust storms caused!
This has sadness... but then when the Family has a bit of peaceful light, you can't help but cheer for them.
Nice historical story.
Ginny Rorby, Thank you for this lovely story from Nona's heart and soul!
Farming is hard work. It's hard to imagine the losses the drought and
dust storms caused!
This has sadness... but then when the Family has a bit of peaceful light, you can't help but cheer for them.
Nice historical story.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 53 reviews