Coralie Blootacker Blootacker من عند Bobrytsya, Kyivs'ka oblast, أوكرانيا من عند Bobrytsya, Kyivs'ka oblast, أوكرانيا

This book has me so conflicted. As I tell my students, when I read it on my own at age 17 I disliked it very very much. This is how such a classic found itself sitting on my "too-rushed-to-appreciate" shelf. Real problem is, when I had to re-read it as the teacher -- I still pretty much hated it. I fell asleep everytime I made it five pages. Ughhh, what is the deal? It is Steinbeck, he's brilliant! Why do I hate this book so? Well, thanks to my lovely 13-year-olds, I finally get the story. That sounds horrible huh? I lead the instruction -- they just had such great insights about such little details (the ones that left me dozing off) and I saw what an amazing story this really is. In such a short novel, every word has to count. I know that, and apparently my students picked up on that more than I did. If the writing were able to keep my attention I would definitely give this 5 stars. The story line really is amazing. To create something so complex in so few pages is powerful. But gosh, until I can read this and not feel pain in my side it's keeping only 3 stars, an improvement from 1.