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BCC Reads!

The BCC Reads! Selection Committee is pleased to announce the BCC Reads! Book for 2007-2008:
The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan.

From Publishers Weekly:
Egan tells an extraordinary tale in this visceral account of how America's great, grassy plains turned to dust, and how the ferocious plains winds stirred up an endless series of "black blizzards" that were like a biblical plague: "Dust clouds boiled up, ten thousand feet or more in the sky, and rolled like moving mountains" in what became known as the Dust Bowl. But the plague was man-made, as Egan shows: the plains weren't suited to farming, and plowing up the grass to plant wheat, along with a confluence of economic disaster-the Depression-and natural disaster-eight years of drought-resulted in an ecological and human catastrophe that Egan details with stunning specificity. He grounds his tale in portraits of the people who settled the plains: hardy Americans and immigrants desperate for a piece of land to call their own and lured by the lies of promoters who said the ground was arable. Egan's interviews with survivors produce tales of courage and suffering: Hazel Lucas, for instance, dared to give birth in the midst of the blight only to see her baby die of "dust pneumonia" when her lungs clogged with the airborne dirt. With characters who seem to have sprung from a novel by Sinclair Lewis or Steinbeck, and Egan's powerful writing, this account will long remain in readers' minds.

Timothy Egan lives in Seattle. He is a journalist for the New York Times, and the author of four books. He has been the recipient of several awards, including the Pulitzer Prize.

Resources Related to The Worst Hard Time

Library Materials
We have a selection of books in the library relating to the topics discussed in the book. These books are housed in the library (D126) and can be checked out for one week. To view a complete listing of books, videos and DVDs available in the Library Media Center relating to The Worst Hard Time, go to the Library Catalog and do a "Subject Begins With" search for "BCC Reads."

Curriculum Resources for Faculty
The following document details resources available in the Library Media Center that supplement The Worst Hard Time: Supplementary Materials.

Librarian Wilma Dougherty has created a repository of materials related to The Worst Hard Time; this is located in the Library Media Center at the Reference Desk. If you would like assistance in finding a way to incorporate this year's BCC Reads selection into your class curriculum, please feel free to stop by the library and speak with a Reference Librarian!

Author Interview
A conversation with Timothy Egan: http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/readers_guides/egan_worst.shtml

The Worst Hard Time PowerPoint Presentation
This PowerPoint Presentation, created by Wilma Dougherty from the BCC Library Media Center, provides information about resources related to The Worst Hard Time available in the Library and lists upcoming BCC Reads campus events. Click to view the Worst Hard Time PowerPoint Presentation.

Interested in past BCC Reads! titles? Visit the BCC Reads! Archives.

To find out more about the BCC Reads! program visit the Center for Liberal Arts website.