All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky

Joe Lansdale knows the Texas-Oklahoma border country in his bones, and it shows on every page of this Dust Bowl road novel. Thirteen-year-old Jack loses both parents in the opening days — his mother to illness, his father to suicide — and falls in with two kids determined to drive a dead neighbor's car to Texas before the land buries them all. What follows is a propulsive Depression-era adventure involving gangsters, freight trains, hoboes, and a wrestler-turned-outlaw. Lansdale keeps the pace quick enough to hold young readers while the historical texture stays honest. Parents should know the father's suicide is a real narrative element, not a passing reference, which warrants a conversation with sensitive younger readers. For the right twelve-to-sixteen-year-old, this is a vivid and memorable piece of historical fiction.