THE GRAPES OF RATH BY JON STINEBACK BY TREVOR JOHNSTON-PIPER - PAT MORRIS
February 14, 2025
The Grapes of Rath by Jon Stineback by Trevor Johnston-Morris
This 4th grade book report is supposed to be at least 500 words. I couldn’t right only 500 words about the Grapes of Rath if I tried!! That's how good this book is Mrs. Weinburger. Mrs. Delores Susan Weinburger. Are you ready? Here we go!
According to the dictionary, a grape is an edible, pulpy fruit that grows on vines. Whoa! And rath means a strong and feerce anger. But if you think this book is about angry grapes then your wrong. This is called a metafor. Remember metafors Mrs. Weinburger? We talked about those last week. Grapes are juicy and easy to squash in your hand. Sometimes they are soft and disgusting. So they get angry because they are little and disgusting and people boss them around for no reason. So this is a metafor. Also the grape could be a kid who has a book report due the next morning but his parents say that he already used up all his screen time and they don’t care that he only had time to read the first three lines on Wikipedia. And then he has lots of rath.
Okay so the book is about this family called the Jodes who are really sad and depressed because they have to live in the Depression. It’s really dusty where they live so they can’t grow stuff like grapes. But like I already told you grapes are probably a metafor for other things. Like potatoes.
In this report we are not supposed to just describe the characters and what happens but we have to talk about the themes. You don’t have to ask me twice Mrs. Weinburger. This book has the best themes of any book I’ve ever read. Even better than Dog Man. Dog Man is half cop and half dog and there are themes about how crime doesn’t pay and not to ever trust cats. His head was stitched on to the body of a cop I think. I wanted to be Dog Man for halloween but mom said we already had the cowboy costume and she was tired. Now take all of those themes from Dog Man and times them by a hundred because that’s how many great themes there are in Grapes of Rath.
And how about that ending? Who could see that coming. Not me, that’s for sure. When all those grapes (metafor) finally got there revenge it made me want to stand up and cheer but I sleep on the bottom bunk of a bunk bed and I would of hit my head. I’m gonna ask my mom now if I can be one of the Jodes for Halloween.
I can see that I’m finally already almost at 500 words and I better stop now before I really get going. I know you are a really busy and important lady Mrs Weinburger and probably have lots of better things to do then read your favorite students (ha ha) book report. See you tomorrow!
Pat Morris teaches English at a community college in Durham, NC. He writes humor pieces, short stories, and is currently revising a novel. Other than writing, he is happiest reading, running, joking around with his wife and kids, and tending to the emotional needs of his pitbull mix, Argo Christmas.