November 16, 2001
With his 1950s period piece "The Majestic" awaiting release, comedian Jim Carrey is turning the clock back another decade to the dust bowl for his next project.

Variety reports that Carrey is to produce and star in historian Jerry Stanley's non-fiction book "The Children Of The Dustbowl," about the Arvin Federal Camp -- the farm-labour shanty depicted in John Steinbeck's "The Grapes Of Wrath."

The book follows the true story of a group of Oklahoma farmers who fled to California to escape drought and dust storms to live as refugees in California camps, where a school superintendent took it upon himself to build the children a schoolhouse, Variety said.

When it was published in 1992, "Children Of The Dustbowl won the Congress Book Of The Year award. Stanley's book was born after the historian interviewed the school official, Leo Hart, for an oral history archive.

Before embarking on "Children Of The Dustbowl," Carrey is to appear in "Pleasantville" director Gary Ross's as-yet-untitled comedy, which is to begin shooting in New York in March, Variety said.