This was a fascinating and also sometimes painful read; engrossing and atmospheric, the right amount of zoomed-in on individual people: everything I could ask for from good historical nonfiction. I couldn’t put it down. Devastating and important. I will absolutely NEVER forget the baby abandoned in front of the church. My heart.

I think we all learned in school how terrible the dust bowl was, but before reading this there was no capacity for my brain to imagine the absolutely horrible circumstances people lived through. I will be “Did you know?!”ing everyone in my life dust bowl facts for a while now.