This Year's Adult Selection: The Grapes of Wrath
By John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California in 1902 and
raised in an agricultural valley near the Pacific
coast. He enrolled in Stanford University in 1919, took classes intermittently,
and dropped out in 1925. Moving to New York, he worked as a journalist and
manual laborer. This experience, as well as his background growing up in a
farming community, heightened his awareness of the difficulties faced by the
working class—a concern that would influence his works to come.
His first novel, Cup of Gold, was published in 1929.
It achieved little critical or commercial attention, but he continued to write
and publish, and in 1935 the publication of Tortilla Flat brought him
popular and financial success. His next novel, Of Mice and Men (1937),
was a success commercially and critically, and its depiction of the friendship
between two migrant workers prefigured the themes of Steinbeck’s next work.
The Grapes of Wrath was published in 1939 and was
almost immediately recognized by many to be a major American novel. Today, it is
generally considered to be Steinbeck’s greatest work, and perhaps the best
depiction of the struggles and tragedies faced by thousands of displaced
Americans during the Great Depression. The novel follows the journey of the
Joads, a family who, evicted from their failing farmlands in the Oklahoma
dustbowl, travel to California, where they believe they can find work. Through
the story of the Joads, their traveling companions and the many other families
they meet, Steinbeck portrays the experience of thousands of families who made a
similar journey in the hopes of finding employment and prosperity, but instead
encountered further suffering and injustice.
Steinbeck is frank and searing in his depiction of the ways
that these migrant workers were exploited and oppressed by powerful business
interests for the sake of profit, and the ways that the workers overcame or
succumbed to the cruelties inflicted upon them. The Grapes of Wrath is a
political novel, but never at the expense of the human story at its heart.
Although he was a firm believer in the moral and political necessity of workers
joining together in collective action to gain and protect their rights,
Steinbeck was not a radical, and he believed that human spirit, faith and family
were equally essential to dignity and freedom.
The Grapes of Wrath won the Pulitzer Prize and the
National Book Award, and established Steinbeck as one of America’s foremost
authors. He maintained a long career afterwards, and if the books that followed The
Grapes of Wrath did not have the force and sweep of that novel, Steinbeck
never lost his concern for the common workers and citizens of America, or his
ability to vividly portray their lives with compassion, honesty and conviction.
In 1962, Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He died in 1968.
Related Link
This Year's Youth Selection:
Holes
By Louis Sachar
The book
Winner of the 1999 Newbery Medal for children’s literature and at least
eight other prestigious awards, Holes blends colorful characters with folklore
and contemporary issues.
In this funny yet touching story, Stanley Yelnats is arrested for a crime he
didn’t commit. Sentenced to a boy’s detention center in the middle of a
Texas desert, he thinks he is going to summer camp. He soon meets a group of
unhappy boys and an evil warden who uses the boys to dig holes in search of
buried treasure.
As the summer passes, Stanley makes discoveries about himself, the true
meaning of friendship, and an ancient curse that has haunted his family for
generations.
The
author
Louis Sachar wrote his first book for children, Sideways Stories from Wayside
School , while working in a sweater warehouse. It was accepted for publication
during his first week of law school. He went on to practice law part-time, but
kept writing until he was eventually able to become a full-time author.
Sachar and his wife, Carla, live in Austin, Texas. They have a daughter,
Sherre and two dogs. Sachar likes to play chess, cards, ski, play the
guitar
(and sing loudly), but mostly he likes spending time with his family.
Other books by Sachar
Sachar’s books include There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom, Dogs Don't
Tell Jokes, Sideways Stories from Wayside
School, and the Marvin Redpost series.
Check with Youth Services for a list of his books at the Boise Public Library.
Holes Activities at the Library
- June 22nd, at 2 PM: "Grapes of Math"
- July 27th, at 2 PM: Boardgame Contest
For more information, call 384-4200.
Related Links
- Return to Read the
Same Book main page -
Last Updated:
01/29/2009
