A one-of-a-kind childhood on the Dakota prairie during the Great Depression and World War II

About the Book

By turns humorous and poignant

A Streak of Dakota Dust is the deeply human account of a boy finding his way through instability and unsupervised adventures that today seem almost unimaginable.

A Streak of Dakota Dust describes Ken’s early years on a primitive, isolated ranch and his subsequent moves through small Dakota towns during the Great Depression. His young life is almost unimaginable today. At four, he was butted over a fence by a renegade ram. At nine, he sneaked into a carnival girly tent. At twelve he quit smoking. Ken was sprayed and temporarily blinded by pungent streams emitted by an agitated skunk. He excelled in school. He floundered in school. He and his younger siblings discovered the power of hunger, the sorrow of losses.

By turns humorous and poignant, Kenneth Goetz’s memoir captures the harshness and the strange beauty of growing up on the American prairie and the enduring marks those early years leave behind.