SuitabookHoping for rain
Connell, Kate.
- Reading
- Read a few letters or diary entries at a time, pausing to map the family’s movement and discuss what each child notices. Check in gently when hunger, hardship or uncertainty becomes prominent.
- Themes
- Endurance under environmental disaster: The children’s letters and diary entries provide the stated perspective on the family’s experience during the Dust Bowl. The circumstances are presented through the children’s letters and diary entries, but the book’s wider judgement about endurance or responsibility is unclear.
- Migration and hoped-for prosperity: The family travels west with Patty and Earl, hoping to find new prosperity after conditions become desperate. Migration is treated as a response to hardship, but whether the journey is ultimately portrayed as hopeful, damaging or successful is unclear.
- Children’s responsibility within the family: Young Earl searches for work so that he can help provide for the family during their journey. The story foregrounds Earl’s wish to contribute, but it does not establish whether this responsibility is criticised, praised or treated more ambiguously.
- Worth knowing
- The family’s hardship is central rather than incidental: dust storms, prolonged drought and hunger shape their decision to leave. Consider whether the reader would welcome support while discussing deprivation and uncertainty.