"Grapes of Wrath" Companion books and more!
Children's Books
Great books for kids to read while their parents are reading "The Grapes of Wrath."
- Durbin, Willliam.
"The Journal of C.J. Jackson: A Dust Bowl Migrant."
Scholastic, 2002
Grades. 5-8.
This addition to the "My Name is America" series chronicles the journey of a 13-year old boy from his family farm in Oklahoma to California in 1935. Historical photos and a reproduction of a page from a 1930 road atlas help to bring this fictional boy's journal to life. - Gates, Doris.
"Blue Willow."
Illustrated by Paul Lantz. Viking, 1940.
Grades 4-6.
Janey Larkin longs for a permanent home as her family moves from one California migrant camp to another during the tough times of the Great Depression. The blue willow plate, handed down for generations, is a reminder of happier days and a symbol of hope for the future. - Jimenez, Francisco.
"Albuquerque, NM."
University of New Mexico Press., 1997.
Grades 5-8.
This award-winning short story collection is a reminder that migrant workers continue to pick the harvest in California fields right up to the present. - Meltzer, Milton.
"Driven From the Land: The Story of the Dust Bowl."
Benchmark Books, 2000.
Grades 4-8.
Contemporary photos help to document this nonfiction treatment of the conditions that led to the Great Depression and the dust storms that drove people from their homes on the Great Plains to the fields of California. - Mora, Pat.
"Tomas and the Library Lady."
Illustrated by Raul Colon. Knopf, 1997.
Grades K-3.
When he was a boy, the writer Tomas Rivera worked in the fields with his migrant family. This picture book tells how he found escape in a public library far from home. - Partridge, Elizabeth.
"This Land Was Made for You and Me:
The Life and Songs of Woody Guthrie"
Viking 2002.
The author of "Restless Spirit: The Life and Work of Dorothea Lange" shapes a lucid, affecting portrait of another indisputably restless spirit, the prolific songwriter and impassioned folksinger Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (1912-1967). Drawing from Guthrie's autobiographical writings and correspondence and from original interviews (with the singer's children Arlo and Nora, and Pete Seeger, among others), the author painstakingly charts his subject's itinerant, often troubled life. Tragedy often, eerily, in the form of devastating fire shadowed Guthrie from his childhood, when his mother, suffering from Huntington's Disease (which eventually ravaged the singer as well), was finally placed in a state hospital after setting her husband on fire. (Years later, Woody's four-year-old daughter died from severe burns.)
In chronicling Guthrie's cross-country ramblings and his relationships with his three wives, children and fellow musicians, Partridge offers intriguing insight into the singer as well as the creation of his songs. Background on political and social conflicts gives readers access to the issues that so frequently inspired Guthrie.
Ample quotations, excerpts from his lyrics, reproductions of his sketches and photographs infuse these pages with Guthrie's spontaneous and charismatic if erratic personality. A memorable biography of this talented artist and understated proponent of social change. - Partridge, Elizabeth.
"Restless Spirit: The Life and Work of Dorothea Lange."
Viking, 1998.
Grades 6 and up.
Lange's evocative photographs of migrant workers helped to bring about social reforms. This well-written biography also includes many reproductions of those memorable images. - Ryan, Pam Munoz.
"Esperanza Rising."
Scholastic, 2000.
Grades 4-8.
Esperanza and her mother must leave their comfortable lives in Mexico for the hardship of farm labor camps in California. Set in the same time and place as "The Grapes of Wrath," this poignant novel tells a similar story of changing fortunes and ultimate redemption, but from the perspective of a Mexican family. - Snyder, Zilpha Keatley.
"Cat Running".
Delacorte, 1994.
Grades 4-8
Sixth-grader Cat Kinsey is certain that she is the fastest runner in her school until "Okie" Zane Perkins shows up in bare feet and ragged overalls. This is a poignant look at the prejudice that migrant workers and their families faced when they reached California during the Great Depression. - Soto, Gary
"Jessie de La Cruz: A profile of a United Farm Worker"
Persea Books, 2000.
Biography of the UFW's first female recruiter -- now 82 years old -- from her devastatingly poor childhood in the fields through the years working with Cesar Chavez. Inspiring reading for middle school through high school. - Stanley, Jerry.
"Children of the Dust Bowl: The True Story of the School at Weedpatch Camp."
Crown, 1992.
Grades 5-8.
This is the inspiring true story of how the children in one Depression-era migrant worker camp helped to build their school. It gives a disturbing look at the conditions in the camps for families. - Turner, Ann Warren.
"Dust for Dinner"
Illustrated by Robert Barrett. HarperCollins, 1995.
Grades 1-3.
This story for beginning readers tells how Jake and his family left their ruined farm in the Dust Bowl of Oklahoma to start a new life in California. - Williams, Sherley Anne.
"Working Cotton"
Illustrated by Carole Byard.
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992.
Grades K-3.
In lyrical poetic language, a young African-American girl tells what it was like when she and her family were migrant workers in the cotton fields of Central California. This was a Caldecott Medal Honor Book. - And don't forget the Newbery Medal book,
"Out of the Dust"
by Karen Hesse
NY: Scholastic, 1997.
The heroine of this novel in blank verse only makes it as far as Arizona before she returns to her father's ravaged Oklahoma farm, to rebuild her life there with courage, faith, and love. This book is not set in California, but no other book for young people tells so well the story of the personal loss and devastation faced by farmers in the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression.
Compiled by Virginia Walter, associate professor and chair, UCLA Department of Information Studies