John Steinbeck

Winner of both the Pulitzer and the Nobel Prize, Steinbeck's classic Great Depression novel follows one family as they're driven from their home and forced to travel west to California. Encountering trials created by the new economic realities they're facing, Stenbeck's drama is fully human-both majestic and tragic. 464 pages, softcover.

Charting the dispossessed labor classes, Steinbeck drew upon his own experiences as a California field-worker as he wrote one of his finest short novels. A portrait of the friendship two men shared in a world marked by misunderstanding and callousness, Of Mice and Men is a classic portrait of commitment, hope, and loss. 105 pages, softcover.

The masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years--a powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is at once a family saga and a modern retelling of the Book of Genesis. In his journal, John Steinbeck called East of Eden the "first book," and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California's Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families - the Trasks and the Hamiltons - whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.

This Novel Units teacher's guide is designed to accompany the (not-included) novel The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.

Including a number of teacher's helps, exercises, discussion questions, assessment tools, graphic organizers, writing and art ideas, critical thinking challenges, extension activities, glossary and more, this book is a convenient guide to facilitating discussion. Background information includes a summary, information about the author, and ideas for initiating activity; the discussion questions follow the chapters in the book. Page numbers are included, which reference the edition quoted in the front cover. [Penguin Books paperback edition, copyright 1939]. Paperback. Grades 9-12.