John Steinbeck
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 4.9 - AR Pts: 25
Lexile measure
680L
Language
English
Description
First published in 1939, Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads, driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into haves and have nots evolves a drama that is intensely human...
2) The pearl
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 7.1 - AR Pts: 4
Lexile measure
1010L
Language
English
Description
"For the diver Kino, finding a magnificent pearl means the promise of better life for his impoverished family. His dream blinds him to the greed and suspicions the pearl arouses in him and his neighbors, and even his loving wife cannot temper his obsession or stem the events leading to tragedy. Kino and his wife illustrate the fall from innocence of people who believe that wealth erases all problems"--Page 4 of cover.
3) Cannery Row
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 6 - AR Pts: 8
Lexile measure
930L
Language
English
Description
Unburdened by the material necessities of the more fortunate, the denizens of Cannery Row discover rewards unknown in more traditional society. Henry the painter sorts through junk lots for pieces of wood to incorporate into the boat he is building, while the girls from Dora Floodrsquo; s bordello venture out now and then to enjoy a bit of sunshine. Lee Chong stocks his grocery with almost anything a man could want, and Doc, a young marine biologist...
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 4.5 - AR Pts: 4
Lexile measure
630L
Language
English
Formats
Description
Tells a story about the strange relationship of two migrant workers, who are able to realize their dreams of an easy life until one of them succumbs to his weakness for soft, helpless creatures and strangles the farmer's wife. Tragic tale of a retarded man and the friend who loves and tries to protect him. With illustrations from the movie starring John Malkovich and Gary Sinise.
5) East of Eden
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5.3 - AR Pts: 34
Lexile measure
700L
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
The saga of three generations of the Trask and Hamilton families in the early 1900's in Northern California.
East of Eden is a work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. Adapted for the 1955 film directed by Elia Kazan introducing James Dean and read by thousands as the book that brought...
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 6.7 - AR Pts: 13
Lexile measure
1010L
Language
English
Description
Penguin Classics commemorates the 50th anniversary of Steinbeck's Nobel Prize with two stunning new editions of his best-loved worksAt age fifty-eight, John Steinbeck and his poodle, Charley, embarked on a journey across America. This chronicle of their trip meanders from small towns to growing cities to glorious wilderness oases. Still evocative and awe-inspiring after fifty years, Travels with Charley in Search of America provides an intimate look...
7) The red pony
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 6.1 - AR Pts: 6
Lexile measure
810L
Language
English
Description
From the Publisher: Raised on a ranch in northern California, Jody is well-schooled in the hard work and demands of a rancher's life. He is used to the way of horses, too; but nothing has prepared him for the special connection he will forge with Gabilan, a hot-tempered pony his father gives him. With Billy Buck, the hired hand, Jody tends and trains his horse, restlessly anticipating the moment he will sit high upon Gabilan's saddle. But when Gabilan...
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 6 - AR Pts: 9
Language
English
Description
Adopting the structure and themes of the Arthurian legend, Steinbeck created a "Camelot" on a shabby hillside above the town of Monterey,California and peopled it with a colorful band of knights. At the center of the tale is Danny, whose house, like Arthur's castle, becomes a gathering place for men looking for adventure, camaraderie, and a sense of belonging. These "knights" are paisanos, men of mixed heritage, whose ancestors settled California...
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 4.4 - AR Pts: 13
Lexile measure
770L
Language
English
Description
"From a swashbuckling pirate fantasy to a meditation on American morality-- two classic Steinbeck novels make their black spine debuts. In awarding John Steinbeck the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Nobel committee stated that with 'The Winter of Our Discontent, ' he had "resumed his position as an independent expounder of the truth, with an unbiased instinct for what is genuinely American." Ethan Allen Hawley, the protagonist of the novel, works...
10) The long valley
Author
Language
English
Description
This collection of stories takes its name from California's Salinas Valley, the setting of much of Steinbeck's work.
Author
Publisher
Penguin Books
Pub. Date
1995.
Language
English
Description
This exciting day-by-day account of Steinbeck's trip to the Gulf of California with biologist Ed Ricketts, drawn from the longer Sea of Cortez, is a wonderful combination of science, philosophy, and high-spirited adventure. Annotation. In 1940, Steinbeck and his friend, biologist Ed Ricketts, ventured into the Gulf of California to search for marine invertebrates along the beaches. This exciting, day-by-day account of their trip, drawn from the longer...
Author
Publisher
BBC Audiobooks America
Pub. Date
[2007]
Language
English
Description
The first book John Steinbeck read as a child was the Caxton Morte d'Arthur, and he considered it one of the most challenging tasks of his career to modernize the stories of King Arthur. "These stories are alive even in those of us who have not read them, " he says. "And, in our day, we are perhaps impatient with the words and the stately rhythms of [Thomas] Malory. I wanted to set the stories down in meaning as they were written, leaving out nothing...
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 4.5 - AR Pts: 14
Language
English
Description
In the California apple country, 900 migratory workers rise up "in dubious battle" against the landowners. The group takes on a life of its own, stronger than its individual members and more frightening. Led by the doomed Jim Nolan, the strike springs from his tragic idealism, from the "courage never to submit or yield."
15) The wayward bus
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5.6 - AR Pts: 13
Language
English
Description
The ambitions, dreams, failings, and innermost thoughts of a diverse group of passengers are revealed as they travel aboard a bus along the backroads of California.
16) Sweet Thursday
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
In Monterey, on the California coast, Sweet Thursday is what they call the day after Lousy Wednesday, which is one of those days that are just naturally bad. Returning to the scene of Cannery Row, the weedy lots and junk heaps and flophouses of Monterey, John Steinbeck once more brings to life the denizens of a netherworld of laughter and tears, from Fauna, new headmistress of the local brothel, to Hazel, a bum whose mother must have wanted a daughter....
17) The moon is down
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5.1 - AR Pts: 5
Language
English
Description
Steinbeck's comment on the moral and ethical implications of war begins in an unknown town that has just been occupied by a small regiment of enemy soldiers. With no alternative, the Mayor of the town agrees to meet with the enemy to try to work out a plan for peaceful co-existence before the impending war goes much further.