The most recommended books about drought

Who picked these books? Meet our 31 experts.

31 authors created a book list connected to drought, and here are their favorite drought books.
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Book cover of California Native Plants for the Garden

Pam Peirce Author Of Golden Gate Gardening,  The Complete Guide to Year-Round Food Gardening in the San Francisco Bay Area & Coastal California

From my list on California Mediterranean Gardening.

Why am I passionate about this?

If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, you know that its climate is unique in the U.S. and that there are many microclimates within the region. It’s all mediterranean, as you can tell by its dry summers and mild, wet winters. But near the coast, summer fog carpets the land for weeks and winter is rarely frosty, while inland summers are hot, winter frosts are frequent. I live here and use my academic and first-hand experience with plants to help regional gardeners create year-round beauty and harvests in all of our wonderful, often perplexing microclimates.

Pam's book list on California Mediterranean Gardening

Pam Peirce Why did Pam love this book?

Historically, California native plants were often grown in European gardens before they were accepted into California gardens. Now they are being grown in California for their beauty and frequent drought tolerance. Here you will see photos of plants in garden landscapes with information about the regions in which they will grow, their needs, and their care. 

By Carol Bornstein, David Fross, Bart O’Brien

Why should I read it?

1 author picked California Native Plants for the Garden as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

California Native Plants for the Garden is a comprehensive resource that features more than 500 of the best California native plants for gardening in Mediterranean-climate areas of the world. Authored by three of the state's leading native-plant horticulturists and illustrated with 450 color photos, this reference book also includes chapters on landscape design, installation, and maintenance. Detailed lists of recommended native plants for a variety of situations and appendices with information on places to see native plants and where to buy them are also provided.


Book cover of Letters from the Dust Bowl

Rae Meadows Author Of I Will Send Rain

From my list on the heart of the Dust Bowl.

Why am I passionate about this?

Photographs, for me, are essential to writing about a particular period. They ignite my imagination like nothing else. For this book I pored over the Library of Congress archives of 1930s FSA photographs, particularly those by Dorothea Lange. Her photos capture humanity at its most desperate, most determined, and they walloped me. Such ruin and poverty, and lives upended. But those faces of Lange’s were what helped me find my characters. I hope that the story of the Bell family transports you to a time and place like none other in American history. These five selections will give you further insight into what life what like.

Rae's book list on the heart of the Dust Bowl

Rae Meadows Why did Rae love this book?

Henderson was a homesteader and teacher in the Oklahoma panhandle and this collection of her writing creates a compelling first-hand portrait of the Dust Bowl. Impeccably detailed about rural farm life, from the days of prosperity to the bare-bones existence necessitated by hardship, Henderson is a thoughtful, ponderous guide. “Out here we thought the depths of the depression had been fathomed some time ago when the sheriff subtracted from the very personal possessions of one our neighbors a set of false teeth that he had been unable to pay for.” 

By Caroline Henderson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Letters from the Dust Bowl as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In May 1936 Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace wrote to Caroline Henderson to praise her contributions to American ""understanding of some of our farm problems."" His comments reflected the national attention aroused by Henderson's articles, which had been published in Atlantic Monthly since 1931. Even today, Henderson's articles are frequently cited for her vivid descriptions of the dust storms that ravaged the Plains.

Caroline Henderson was a Mount Holyoke graduate who moved to Oklahoma's panhandle to homestead and teach in 1907. This collection of Henderson's letters and articles published from 1908 to1966 presents an intimate portrait of a woman's…


Book cover of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

Christine Ieronimo Author Of A Thirst for Home: A Story of Water across the World

From my list on stories from Africa with strong protagonists.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am passionate about writing books for children that create windows to the world, teaching empathy. Children that are empathic grow up to be kind and compassionate adults. I write because I long for a world that is more accepting and compassionate.  

Christine's book list on stories from Africa with strong protagonists

Christine Ieronimo Why did Christine love this book?

Drought has hit a Malawi village and everyone’s crops are failing. Fourteen-year-old William Kamkwamba figures out how to bring electricity to the village by building a windmill out of scraps from a junkyard. I love this story because it highlights the importance of education, and along with determination, William was able to build this windmill bringing electricity which helped lift this community up and bring hope. Education is the best way to lift communities up from poverty. Elizabeth Zunon provides gorgeous illustrations that enhance the text.  

By William Kamkwamba, Bryan Mealer, Elizabeth Zunon (illustrator)

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 6, 7, and 8.

What is this book about?

When a terrible drought struck William Kamkwamba's tiny village in Malawi, his family lost all of the season's crops, leaving them with nothing to eat and nothing to sell. William began to explore science books in his village library, looking for a solution. There, he came up with the idea that would change his family's life forever: he could build a windmill. Made out of scrap metal and old bicycle parts, William's windmill brought electricity to his home and helped his family pump the water they needed to farm the land. Retold for a younger audience, this exciting memoir shows…


Book cover of Where the Watermelons Grow

John Cochran Author Of Breaking into Sunlight

From my list on middle-grade tough topics hope and compassion.

Why am I passionate about this?

I know from my own experience how much kids need books that deal honestly with hard things and point to hope. When I was in fifth grade, a friend was killed by a car while walking to school. I had moved to town not long before; this boy was the first friend I’d made, and suddenly, he was gone. Soon after, I found a novel called Bridge to Terabithia, the story of a fifth-grader, Jess, who loses a friend in an accident. It made me cry, but it was healing: I felt less alone and found strength in watching Jess find his way forward despite his grief.

John's book list on middle-grade tough topics hope and compassion

John Cochran Why did John love this book?

This book is about something as disruptive to a child’s world as can be–a parent’s debilitating mental illness–and Baldwin handles it realistically and sensitively.

Twelve-year-old Della is terrified and heartbroken by her mother’s struggles with schizophrenia, and I know as a writer that Baldwin faced a huge challenge in telling this story: finding where the hope lies when, ultimately, there’s no cure for the mom.

The answer lies in acceptance and community, and Baldwin handles this in a way that feels wise, real, and satisfying to me. This book is also close to my heart because it is set in a part of the world I know and love, rural eastern North Carolina, and Baldwin describes it so beautifully.

By Cindy Baldwin,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Where the Watermelons Grow as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, 10, and 11.

What is this book about?

Fans of The Thing About Jellyfish and A Snicker of Magic will be swept away by Cindy Baldwin's debut middle grade about a girl coming to terms with her mother's mental illness. An Oregon Spirit Award Honor book.

When twelve-year-old Della Kelly finds her mother furiously digging black seeds from a watermelon in the middle of the night and talking to people who aren't there, Della worries that it's happening again-that the sickness that put her mama in the hospital four years ago is back. That her mama is going to be hospitalized for months like she was last time.…


Book cover of Now In November

Jessica Graham Author Of Good Sex: Getting Off Without Checking Out

From Jessica's 3 favorite reads in 2023.

Why am I passionate about this?

Author Trauma-resolution guide Sex and relationship coach Actor Nude model Spoonie

Jessica's 3 favorite reads in 2023

Jessica Graham Why did Jessica love this book?

Recently, a series of unfortunate events created the perfect storm of unexpected expenses, and the debt that resulted has me vacillating between the wet wool of depression and ice-cold shrieks of panic. I try to be open about my money woes, and when I told a loved one about my predicament, she suggested that I read this book.

This gorgeous Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is a beautiful, poetic, and brutal story about a family during the Depression and how they lost almost everything over the course of a year as the great drought ravages their crops, hearts, and minds.

This lean feast of a book made me feel less alone in my financial fear and in the sense that capitalism is fighting dirty and has me down for the count.

By Josephine W. Johnson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Now In November as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Brilliant, evocative, poetic, savage, this Pulitzer Prize-winning first novel (1934) depicts a white, middle-class urban family that is turned into dirt-poor farmers by the Depression and the great drought of the thirties.

Like Ethan Frome, the relatively brief, intense story evokes the torment possible among people isolated and driven by strong feelings of love and hate that, unexpressed, lead inevitably to doom. Reviewers in the thirties praised the novel, calling its prose "profoundly moving music," expressing incredulity "that this mature style and this mature point of view are those of a young women in her twenties," comparing the book to…


Book cover of The Conservationist

Lewis DeSoto Author Of A Blade of Grass

From my list on about life, literature and South Africa.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up during the apartheid era of racial segregation and oppression. A Blade of Grass was written with a sense of exile and regret, but also with love. It is not overtly about South Africa and apartheid. It asks a fundamental question: Where is home, and how shall we live there?

Lewis' book list on about life, literature and South Africa

Lewis DeSoto Why did Lewis love this book?

I read this novel in university in a course taught brilliantly by the scholar WH New. It was the first time I understood the complexity of layers in great literature. Ostensibly about a businessman who buys a farm, it encompasses race relations, power in all its guises, sexuality, relationships to nature, and how character influences personal destiny. Written with outrage and compassion.

I kept The Conservationist in mind when I wrote my own book as an example of what a novel could be, but more than that, it taught me how to think about the world in a new way.

By Nadine Gordimer,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Conservationist as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Mehring is rich. He has all the privileges and possessions that South Africa has to offer, but his possessions refuse to remain objects. His wife, son, and mistress leave him; his foreman and workers become increasingly indifferent to his stewardship; even the land rises up, as drought, then flood, destroy his farm.


Book cover of Children of the Dust Bowl: The True Story of the School at Weedpatch Camp

Rebecca Langston-George Author Of The Booth Brothers: Drama, Fame, and the Death of President Lincoln

From my list on little-known US history for children.

Why am I passionate about this?

I taught for more than 26 years in classes ranging from first grade through college. No matter the age of the students, I used children’s books to introduce topics in history. I never shied away from using a picture book with older students and often found they were more engaged in a picture book than in an article. I also used historical fiction as a hook to lure students into picking up a related non-fiction book. In fact, historical fiction was the gateway that taught this writer of 13 nonfiction children’s books to love non-fiction history. 

Rebecca's book list on little-known US history for children

Rebecca Langston-George Why did Rebecca love this book?

This nonfiction book is not only dear to my heart, I can also honestly say it changed my life.

It’s about the only Federal Emergency School ever created. Built for the children of farm workers displaced by the Dust Bowl in 1940, it tells of School Superintendent Leo B. Hart’s ingenuity and steadfast devotion to children who faced seemingly insurmountable hardships and discrimination as occupants of the migrant camp outside Bakersfield, California that inspired John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.

I taught at this school, now known as Sunset, for many years, and I kept a note in my lesson planner that read What would Leo B. Hart do? 

By Jerry Stanley,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Children of the Dust Bowl as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, 10, and 11.

What is this book about?

Illus. with photographs from the Dust Bowl era. This true story took place at the emergency farm-labor camp immortalized in Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Ostracized as "dumb Okies," the children of Dust Bowl migrant laborers went without school--until Superintendent Leo Hart and 50 Okie kids built their own school in a nearby field.


Book cover of The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl

Lynn Kanter Author Of Her Own Vietnam

From my list on when the political turns personal.

Why am I passionate about this?

Many of us were taught as children that life isn’t fair. I never accepted this; shouldn’t we do all we can to make life fair? I grew up to be a lifelong activist and a writer for social justice organizations. As a reader and writer, I love books about women’s lives, especially women who realize that the world around them shapes their own experiences. Sometimes history is happening right here, right now—and you know it. Those transformative moments spark the best stories, illuminating each book I’ve recommended. 

Lynn's book list on when the political turns personal

Lynn Kanter Why did Lynn love this book?

I’d always assumed that the Dust Bowl in the 1930s was a natural disaster. Nope. The scouring dust storms that destroyed thousands of lives and millions of farms in five states didn’t have to happen. They were the predictable—and predicted!—result of short-sighted human decisions, such as the government handing tracts of formerly Indian land to white settlers to tear out the nourishing native grasses and plant wheat instead.

The human hand behind extreme weather might seem obvious to us now, but it was eye-opening for me in 2006 when I read this riveting nonfiction drama of families trapped in a living nightmare. I have never forgotten its impact or its lessons.

By Timothy Egan,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked The Worst Hard Time as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 14, 15, 16, and 17.

What is this book about?

In a tour de force of historical reportage, Timothy Egan’s National Book Award–winning story rescues an iconic chapter of American history from the shadows.

The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since. Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Timothy Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones. Brilliantly capturing the terrifying drama of catastrophe, he does equal justice to the human characters…


Book cover of Dry

Frances Greenslade Author Of Red Fox Road

From my list on survival for young readers.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a Canadian writer living in southern British Columbia. When I was young, most people thought I was too small and frail to do awesome things. It wasn’t until I got older that I began to understand that my love for wild places and adventures was at the heart of who I was, and I began to see that I was much stronger than I thought. These days, I hike, climb, kayak, cross-country ski, and snowshoe – anything that gets me outside in nature. And I've done some awesome things out there! I want to change the way people see nature, not as something to be conquered, but to be treated with affection and respect.

Frances' book list on survival for young readers

Frances Greenslade Why did Frances love this book?

This is one of the scarier disaster novels I’ve read, targeted at young adults rather than middle-grade readers.

People die in frighteningly believable ways in this story about a severe water shortage in California. I live in a semi-arid region that has been experiencing more frequent droughts in the last few years, so this novel’s premise felt plausible: the taps are literally turned off.

As well, the various characters’ reactions to the crisis reflected people I know, from preppers to climate changer deniers to those who dig deep and find kindness no matter how bad things get.

By Neal Shusterman, Jarrod Shusterman,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Dry as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 12, 13, 14, and 15.

What is this book about?

“The authors do not hold back.” —Booklist (starred review)
“The palpable desperation that pervades the plot…feels true, giving it a chilling air of inevitability.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“The Shustermans challenge readers.” —School Library Journal (starred review)
“No one does doom like Neal Shusterman.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

When the California drought escalates to catastrophic proportions, one teen is forced to make life and death decisions for her family in this harrowing story of survival from New York Times bestselling author Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman.

The drought—or the Tap-Out, as everyone calls it—has been going on for a while…


Book cover of The Farmer

Phyllis Root Author Of Anywhere Farm

From my list on growing things.

Why am I passionate about this?

I write children’s books, both fiction and non-fiction, including One Duck Stuck, Big Momma Makes the World, Rattletrap Car, Plant a Pocket of Prairie, and, in collaboration with Jacqueline Briggs Martin and Liza Ketchum, Begin With A Bee, a picture book about the federally endangered rusty-patched bumblebee. Recently I have been putting my garden to bed for the winter, pulling tomato vines, harvesting beans that have dried on the vine, cutting herbs, and planting cloves of garlic to grow into heads in next year’s garden. In a couple of months snow will bury the garden beds, and the only gardens will be in the pages of books. Here are five of the children’s books that I love about growing things.

Phyllis' book list on growing things

Phyllis Root Why did Phyllis love this book?

First published in French and illustrated with wonderfully vivid art, this is a story of a farmer who works hard mowing, raking, digging, watering in his fields. He rejoices when things begin to grow, but a drought threatens all his hard work. The farmer is not alone, though, in his efforts, and the art shows the farm animals helping, followed by rain falling and bringing his fields to colorful and joyful abundance. Hard work matters, and so do friends.

By Ximo Abadia,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Farmer as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 3, 4, 5, and 6.

What is this book about?

A farmer's hard work is rewarded in this eco-friendly and elegantly illustrated picture book.

A New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Book of the Year!

In the town, everyone is sleeping. But not Paul.

Paul mows. Paul rakes. Paul sows. Paul draws water. And soon Paul has beautiful plants and flowers growing all around him. But one day, the water dries up. The sun beats down. Paul despairs. But thanks to his animal friends, and a bit of rain, help is on the way . . .

Filled with vivid illustrations of Paul's hard work, the brilliant blooms…


Book cover of California Native Plants for the Garden
Book cover of Letters from the Dust Bowl
Book cover of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

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