Out of the Dust
Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse is a children’s novel entirely written in blank verse.
I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one who sometimes just writes that way. I may have been an English major in college but I’d even forgotten that this sort of writing had a name. I’d certainly forgotten (or else, I’d certainly all-but-decided to forget) that this sort of writing had any sort of legitimacy. I’ve been doing it anyway. (Ashes to ashes, and Hesse won a Newberry: Dust to dust, and I win writing while I do the laundry.)
In some ways, the story is so unremittingly tragic that it should be wildly inappropriate for children; the blank verse is so strange, meanwhile, that it should be wildly inappropriate for a legitimate author to be using it.
It works, though. The author’s theme is forgiveness, even though the only theme some of our children could see was dust.
Ah, well!
