Children of the dust bowl

The Okie kids were the "stars" of this historical account of the building of the Weedpatch School in California during the early 1940s. Before the Okie kids got their own school, Ruth Criswell recalled how every day of their lives her children were ridiculed by the other students at the public school. Wayne Rogers remembered being humiliated when the school nurse checked the Okie boys for lice—repeating over and over that "Okie kids have lice". Mae McMasters wished she had been born somewhere other than in Oklahoma and Shirley Cox wanted to be anyone other than an Okie.

But things changed for the Okie kids when Leo Hart decided they needed rescuing. After the Weedpatch School was built, the Okie kids enrolled there began to display signs of self-confidence, feelings of self-worth and talents and abilities even they didn't know they had. Joyce Foster, who lost her father to lung disease, expressed her grief in an essay which she read before a gathering of Okie parents. Doyle Powers earned a ninety-two percent average in math and was allowed to taxi the school's military airplane—used to teach kids airplane mechanics—down the school's "runway." Eddie Davis' hog won third place at the county fair. When he was ridiculed by a local boy, Eddie busted him in the nose and sent him flying into the hog "slop". Student Elyse Phillips recalled when the school's swimming pool was completed, she fell into the water, "crying because I was so happy" (p. 59).

Trice Masters summed up the feelings that the Okie students held for their teachers who "made us feel important and like someone really cared".