State's reading assignment: "Grapes of Wrath"
GETTING CALIFORNIA'S POPULATION ON SAME PAGE FOR `ONE BOOK' EFFORT POSES UNPRECEDENTED CHALLENGE

By John Woolfolk
Mercury News

Fri, Jun. 07, 2002

It was banned in many communities and burned in the author's hometown of Salinas, but today California first lady Sharon Davis is putting John Steinbeck's 1939 novel "The Grapes of Wrath" on everyone's reading list.

The first effort to get every Californian to read the same novel -- a heart-wrenching tale of hardship faced by Dust Bowl migrants -- is said to be the most ambitious of the "One Book" promotions that have swept the country.

"Governor Davis and I are turning California into a land of readers," Davis said Thursday, a day before she launches the read-a-thon. "I think this program will further encourage literacy in our state."

Seattle started the "One Book" craze in 1998 and is on its fourth novel. The programs gained momentum nationwide after Chicago's mayor urged his 3 million constituents last year to read Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird."

But while several states, including Arkansas, Kentucky and Texas, have taken up the initiative, none is as populous or diverse as California, where more than half of the 34 million residents are racial or ethnic minorities.

"It's unprecedented in its size and in terms of the number of people taking part," said Natalie Cole, assistant director of the California Center for the Book, which is co-sponsoring the program.

Getting a generation raised on MTV to read the book will be challenging. At the Borders bookstore in Milpitas, many shoppers browsing the aisles had not even heard of Steinbeck, much less "The Grapes of Wrath", and a brief summary did not grab them.

"I never read it, never heard of it," said John Nguyen, 23, an Ohlone College student from San Jose flipping through a book written by master of the macabre Edgar Allen Poe. "It doesn't sound like my cup of tea."

In a nod to a program in a state where one in three residents is Latino, publisher Penguin Putnam this year has launched its first domestic Spanish-language edition of the novel: "Las Uvas de la Ira."

The Santa Clara County Library has Spanish-language copies of the novel at its Gilroy and Alum Rock branches.

Promoters said "The Grapes of Wrath," for which Steinbeck won a Pulitzer Prize in 1940, was a natural choice and that they never considered another work -- thereby avoiding the grief New Yorkers have had trying to agree on a novel for their city.

The California Council for the Humanities, which is sponsoring the state's program, chose "The Grapes of Wrath" last fall at the suggestion of the associate director's wife, who had noticed farmworkers toiling in fields.

The only concern seemed to be the book's length -- 455 pages. But promoters said Steinbeck's epic about the Joad clan leaving Oklahoma to start over in California should resonate in a state that remains a destination for people in search of a better life.

Humanities council director Jim Quay said Steinbeck's passage about the Joads' first sight of California -- "the vineyards, the orchards, the great flat valley, green and beautiful, the trees set in rows, and the farm houses" -- is shared by many.

"I remember reading `The Grapes of Wrath' in high school, and I know that it's impact reaches far beyond the Joad family," Davis said. "We all have a connection to the story of humanity and the California experience. Everyone can benefit from reading this book."

Francisco Jimenez, a Santa Clara University professor who has written two books -- "The Circuit" and "Breaking Through" -- about growing up as a migrant farmworker in California, said "The Grapes of Wrath" seemed to tell his family's story.

"It was the first novel that spoke to my own experience," said Jimenez, who read it in high school. "Even though it was difficult for me at the time -- I had difficulty with English -- I had a hard time putting it down. I saw a lot of similarities."

Though possibly Steinbeck's most celebrated work, "The Grapes of Wrath" was not warmly embraced by California when it first was published. Steinbeck wrote the novel in what is now Monte Sereno, based upon reporting he had done on the migrant farmworker community.

But his unflattering depiction of farm owners as callous taskmasters outraged the state's agricultural leaders.

"And they had hoped to find a home, and they found only hatred," Steinbeck wrote.

Kern County banned the book, and retired Bakersfield schoolteacher Vernon Bell, who was the first to teach it there, said it's fitting that the state is now promoting it.

"There were lots of people who wouldn't bring it out at all, who thought it was dangerous," Bell said. "I thought it was thought-provoking. I thought they should teach books that have a little value to them."