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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I love Moby Dick, but I didn't read it when I was 10.

And, really -- Of Mice and Men and Cannery Row for 10-year-olds?! My personal opinion is that there is no right age for reading Steinbeck, but if you must read Steinbeck, at least wait until high school.[/quote]

I read these when I was  just 11 and I loved them. And I was in public school (!)[/quote]

Well, that gets us back to the unanswerable question, which comes up every single time on these threads -- is it a good thing if a kid reads a book and loves it, even though the kid really doesn't understand the first thing about the book? [/quote]

Our whole class read Cannary Row and Of Mice and Men. We understood these books, we studied them. Maybe you didn't experience good teachers and a rigorous education, but I am one of the lucky ones, who did.[/quote]

Your whole class read Cannery Row and Of Mice and Men in fifth grade? And that whole class of fifth-graders understood all about the multiple adult themes in both books? I wasn't there, so I'm not saying it didn't happen, but I don't think that you were a very typical group of twenty-five or so 11-year-olds.[/quote]

I find it hard to believe as well. Cannery Row is described by Steinbeck as a place with drunks, whores, and pimps. I didn't even know what a pimp was in elementary school and I am not sure I realized what one was in middle school. I think it went way over the head of most of the fifth graders who could decode the book but didn't understand everything that was going on like the man with two wives who committing suicide after settling his debts by selling his warehouse.  There are so many great classic books that can be read at that age that it is a waste for a teacher to have the students read Cannery Row as well as Mice and Men.  [/quote]

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