Of Mice and Men earned the dubious prestige of being the second most frequently banned book in the public school curriculum of the 1990s. Censors claim that the novella contains crude heroes who speak vulgar language and whose experiences exhibit a sadly deficient social system in the United States.
On one side of the warm Salinas River the Gabilan Mountains slowly rise; on the other, the valley side, trees line the bank. Through the willows and sycamores a path is worn, by boys coming down from ranches to swim and by tramps coming off the highway…
When he was writing Of Mice and Men in early 1936, and even during the period between the novel’s completion and its publication, John Steinbeck’s expectations for the book were low. It was typical of Steinbeck to doubt the quality of his work after it was finished.
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