Negative Positive
Title: Good book with a few great moments, and some questionable ones
Review: Travels with Charley is one of Steinbeck's better books, though several of the incidents he "reports"(?) bear a suspicious resemblance to episodes from some of his novels. Personally, the parts I enjoyed the most were those about his eponymous traveling companion Charley, an elderly French poodle, and I wish there had been more of them. I'm not sure that Steinbeck managed to learn or convey much that was very meaningful about America, but his description of his sojourn through New Orleans near the end to witness the protests against desegregation as six-year-old Ruby Bridges became the first black child to attend a white grade school (immortalized in Norman Rockwell's painting "The Problem We All Live With") is quite interesting, even moving. On the whole, despite some problems (including its dubious veracity in places), definitely worth a read. Three and a half stars.
Is the review positive or negative? 