Throughout Out of the Dust, Billie Jo experiences new growth in her life. This new growth is evident when you look at what she is learning and how she is changing. Her relationship with her father improves, she learns to accept new people and what they have to offer, she learns to be happy, and she learns that you can't run away from your problems. At the beginning of the novel, Billie Jo and her father are distant. Their relationship gets even worse after the accident when Ma isn't there to connect them. “I don’t know my father anymore,” said Billie Jo, “I’m embarrassed around him.” (p. 76) However, after Billie Jo runs away and meets the man on the train, she realizes how important family is and that she and her father need to be together while they recover of Ma's death. She recognizes it and thinks: "My father remained rooted, despite my trials and my character, even with the double sorrow of his grief and mine, he had kept a home until I breeze. » (p. 202) It is at this moment that Billie Jo understands that her father has always loved her and that she belongs to him....