For my summer reading book I was assigned to read, Travels with Charley in Search of America, by John Steinbeck. The story is about Steinbeck, the main character, and his fluffy companion, Charley. They set off for their road trip across America in a pickup truck pulling behind a camper hitting almost half of the states. Steinbeck was a novelist, he wrote stories about what society was like at the time. Throughout America’s time we have all witnessed many ups and downs with things like the Great Depression. Which happened to become an advantage to Steinbeck’s career allowing him to write about how America was dealing with the issue among the different states. John Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902 to a middle class family. He was born and raised in Salinas Valley, California. When Steinbeck wasn’t studying or outside he would work on local farms to help his family with money. After he finished high school he went on to apply for Stanford College and would attend on and off for six years until he decided to drop out. Once he did that he started job hopping earning money for …show more content…
Charley is a French Standard Poodle that rides along with Steinbeck as a side kick. Steinbeck took the trip in 1960. He felt it would be better without a person but, knew it’d be a lonely trip without at least something to keep company other than the strangers he met on the way. He traveled through twenty three states including beautiful Maine! My favorite part of the book was definitely when he went to Maine because I knew about Bangor and it made me connect to the book much better. Another part that stood out compared to others was when he tried crossing the border into Canada to make the trip quicker but couldn’t because he didn’t have Charley’s rabee shots. The main reason he wanted to go on his adventure was to see how different parts of America were dealing with desegregation and the