About this title: John Steinbeck lived and worked with a group of migrant workers in California, from whom he drew the material for his great Dust Bowl saga of a wandering Okie family, the Joads. This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel awakened the American reading public to the plight of migrant workers and made Steinbeck famous worldwide. One of the most popular novels of the Great Depression, it has come to be regarded as a classic work of social realism and was made into an acclaimed movie.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: The Viking press, New York
Date Published: 1939
Description: Very Good. 4 p. l., 3-619 p. 21 cm. Songs with music on lining-papers. "First published in April 1939. " Source: Copyright deposit (129068), Apr. 18, 1939. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Penguin Books
Date Published: 1976
ISBN-13:9780140042399ISBN:0140042393
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Shows some wear, but pages are clean and unmarked. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 586 p. Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century. Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: Acceptable. Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Reader's Digest Association
ISBN-13:9780895773876ISBN:0895773872
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
"I have always been a Steinbeck fan and I chose to give this book to my adult daughter to let her see how bad things were compared to today's economy. She so loved the book that she wants to read more of this writer's work."
"The Grapes of Wrath is a book everyone should read but this was a college study guide. Just afew pages long and I was expecting the full book. This was not in the book discription."
"I got caught shoplifting makeup when I was thirteen. I waited for my mom to come to the store after security called her, imagining the anger she'd have in her face when she saw me and feeling shame, shame, shame. I didn't cry until she walked into the office and burst into tears, herself! Then I did, too. And on the way home, as I sobbed, she said things like, "I know, I know," and "Shh..." Then she bought me a pineapple softserve ice cream cone at a drive-thru Mexican restaurant and took me home, where I laid in bed waiting for the sound of my dad's diesel engine and my impending doom.
I thought of that while reading this book because Ma Joad, the strongest character I've met in a Steinbeck story, would tell her kids or her husband to hush when they started doubting themselves and their choices. She'd say something like, "Of course you did what you could! We all did. Everybody did what they could, so hush now, and peel these potatoes. Your pa and brothers need to eat!" Even her son who had killed somebody (in self-defense) was given a full pardon by Ma and told to just hush up about it! Of course you didn't put shame on the family! You did yer time, now hush!
So, scrawny Ruthie Joad goes and tells a whopper of a family secret that changes things for everybody and puts an instant fear into the whole clan, including Ma, who gets wind of it from little Winfield. And Winfield says, hopefully, "Gonna whup her, Ma?" But no. She orders everyone to be quiet about it to Ruthie and not make her feel worse than she already does. When Ruthie shows up, she runs to her ma's middle and screams and cries into her belly. Ma knew, of course. Nobody can punish a person like him or herself. Just read the book and look at Uncle John, and you'll know it, too.
Now, this book is not historical fiction--it's fiction from history. John Steinbeck wrote this book while all of the labor injustice was happening. Effigies of Steinbeck were burned all over California in protest over this revealing saga! He grew up in Salinas, well off, but idealistic. He spent his school vacations working in fields and on farms and listening, listening, listening to people's stories. He felt love and empathy for these people. He saw it as another Civil War for our country, but this time between the "haves" and the "have nots," which is why he used a phrase from a Civil War ballad as his title.
Books about injustice and upheaval make me feel so anxious because they make me look at myself. My students read books about Martin Luther King, Jr., or Rosa Parks, and they feel empowered. They say really lofty things about justice and rights and humanity and what was wrong, and what they would do. And I'm glad to hear them talk like that, but I get anxious during this sort of talk, too. I don't think I'd have been the one to stand up against anything. If I were there, I wouldn't have been picketing, facing violence! I'd have been hiding in my cabin, wishing everyone else would just go back to their cabins and work and stop causing trouble. People are likely to get their heads smashed in when they stand against power. And thank the Lord (Ma Joad's Lord, please, not Rosasharn's or Uncle John's) that there are people who will. Okay, enough about me and how I am no hero. It makes me feel squirmy.
Though, maybe I'll find my cause. There was one thing that got to Ma Joad enough to shame her kids, and that was selfishness or self-pity. "It's not all about you, Rosasharn," she says to her pregnant daughter. She tells her that if she were well and not with child, she'd give her a whop in the face for all that self-pity. She wanted her to understand that you can't be self-serving! You've got to give even when you've got nothing! And Rosasharn learned that lesson. I learned that she had in one of the most beautiful paragraphs I will ever read."
"I still can't believe I didn't read Grapes of Wrath in American Lit but suspect I enjoyed it more at 52 than 19! I was drawn into this story immediately and especially liked the book's descriptive language, structure, and memorable characters. Casey, the reluctant, questioning preacher was my favorite. I admired the Joads' dignity, perseverance despite all odds, and willingness to share with others equally unfortunate. I was struck by how Steinbeck makes you feel like you're on that journey with all the migrant workers: tasting those dinners of pork and potatoes, marveling at a warm shower in the government camp, dreaming to work the earth, grow food for your family, pick cotton and peaches for a dignified wage, find that little white house. The last few chapters were exhausting and relentless (like the rain) but impossible to put down. I think I'll need to read something a little lighter before I start The Worst Hard Time for my book group."
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