Children of the Dust uses a fairly standard third-person narrative style.

There are three sections of approximately sixty pages each. Each section takes us, in chronological order, through important events in its title character's life. The structure is that of a shortened family saga, with two family members, Bill Harnden and his daughter Catherine, tying the family together across time. Catherine is physically present at events in all three sections; Bill is present only in spirit in the first and third.

The tone of the first section is almost unrelievedly grim. Although scenes like the younger children's squabbling give an illusion of ordinary life for a few lines, the reader is never very far away from the realization that everything will end soon, and horribly, for most of these people. This tone is perhaps inevitable and even desirable, given the subject. Yet it makes Children of...