In a time of drought and economic depression in 1934, Ella Barron runs her boardinghouse in Texas while caring for her son, Solly, and responds to the calm influence of one of her boarders, David Rainwater, while facing the tension and uncertainty around her.

Evil lives in a traveling carnival roaming the Depression-era South. But the carnival's newest act, a peculiar young woman with latent magical powers, may hold the key to defeating it. Her time has come. Abandoned by her family, alone on the wrong side of the color line with little to call her own, Eliza Meeks is coming to terms with what she does have. It's a gift for communicating with animals. To some, she's a magical tender. To others, a she-devil....

"The 1930s were a tough time. The Great Depression left many people jobless and penniless. Dust storms and drought led to failed crops. Livestock died. People thought things couldn't get much worse. Then, on April 14, 1935, the sky turned black. For hours, an enormous dust blizzard blanketed the country in darkness. Now readers can step back in time to learn about what led up to this terrifying storm, how the tragic event unfolded, and the ways in...

Draws on reports, newspaper articles, and interviews to chronicle the American Dust Bowl, providing photographs to illustrate the catastrophe as well as offer a tribute to man's relationship to the land and his ability to persevere.

Ken Burns documents the worst man-made ecological disaster in American history, when a frenzied wheat boom on the southern Plains, followed by a decade-long drought during the 1930s, nearly swept away the breadbasket of the nation. Vivid interviews, dramatic photographs, and seldom-seen movie footage bring to life incredible stories of human suffering and perseverance. Includes bonus features.

"1934. The Dustbowl. The last great age of magic. In a time of titanic sandstorms, vile plagues, drought and pestilence - signs of God's fury and harbingers of the Apocalypse - the final conflict between good and evil is about to begin. The battle will take place in the heartland of an empire called America, where a traveling carnival harboring Ben Hawkins, a troubled healer, will clash with an evangelical ministry led by Borther Justin Crowe."--Container....

"Dust Bowl refugee Gloria Mae Willard finds herself uprooted and working on a California peach orchard, where she tries to join the secret, all-boys baseball team that she's desperate to play on"--

"Describes the people and events of the U.S. Dust Bowl. The reader's choices reveal the historical details from the perspectives of a farmer, a migrant worker, and a government photographer"--Provided by publisher.