The Dust Bowl
This book called Black Storm Comin'. This book is about a boy named Colton Wescott moving with his family to California. His family was whole with a mother, father, two sisters and a brother, but his Pa shot him on accident and went riding off with there one old, skinny horse named Ned. The reason they are traveling to California is because they used to live in Oklahoma on a small farm but all of that changed when the dust storms came. The dust storms caused too much damage to their farms that they could no longer keep it running, for all there topsoil was blown away from the strong winds and drought. As for the other farms the same thing happened and no one could do anything about it except, wait for the rain to come.
What makes this story so significant from others is the fact that their family was mixed. The father was white and the mother was black. Your probably wondering well that doesn't mean anything nowadays, but this takes place in the late 1800. Which is when racial discrimination was a very big thing back then. Colton Wescott was was mixed but could pass for being white, which is very dangerous because you end up being hanged or shot or even sent to jail.
On his journey to California he decides to become a Pony Rider so their family could have some income and to pay the doctor for taking care of the mother. Who ends up getting really sick and depressed. Anyway a Pony Rider is someone who, in this case rides from St.Joseph which is in Missouri. And from there he rides to different station along the way getting a new, fresh, and read to go horse at each station. When all the while is getting to Sacramento, California. In this story he does this twice. First he does it the normal way of at each station gets a new horse and gives the mail. Then continues on but the second time he does this with only one horse. This horse at first had no name but he was later named Badger. Badger was a all black, short stocky pony. Badger did this entire trip all by himself and Colton wanted to stop and rest but Badger insisted on continuing on. Until finally at one station they stayed for a few days because badger got sick and was very tired but other then that it was all is one day.
During the dust storms people were devastated, hungry sad and maybe even lonely. They might have been lonely because during this time many people died from the dust getting there lungs. In the book they say that people would cover windows and doors even if they were closed dust would still get in.