Of Mice and Men Archive
Writ in Water: Son of Salinas
Last month, I mentioned John Steinbeck’s famous declaration about the forgetfulness of his beloved Salinas Valley in matters of water and drought. He is fortunate that the valley has not forgotten him. The National Steinbeck Center commands one end of Main Street in downtown Salinas, and a walk through
Round-Down: North Carolina and Idaho Schools Face Proposed Book Bans
Concerns over the age-appropriateness of books is nothing new. Efforts to ban books are perennial attempts of, assumedly, those worried about a book’s potential to negatively impact a reader too young to access its merit. At Melville House, Taylor Sperry discusses the recent attempt at banning Khaled Hosseini’s The
Literary Blueprints: The Wise Fool
After meeting Gothic characters the Byronic Hero and the Mad Woman, the time has come to visit periods before Romanticism in discovering a popular character known as The Wise Fool. Origin Story: The idea of the Wise Fool is somewhat hard to trace. Unlike some other character types,
Survival of the Readers
In eighth grade, my science class included a unit about Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution. I built a diorama of clay giraffes meant to represent how offspring with longer necks were more likely to survive and reproduce since they were more capable of eating leaves from tall