Easier-To-Read Fahrenheit 451 is Ready To Go!
Once again, I am delighted to bring you a new title for your ELL and SPED students! Also useful, I’d like to add, for lazy kids and literal kids. Kind of a one-stop shop.
The irony that I’ve created an un-burnable digital copy of a book about burning books isn’t lost on me.
This is the Easier-To-Read edition of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.
It is a dystopian vision of a future United States where non-conformist activities are ostracized. Books, the source of all unhappiness societal-ills, are criminalized and burned by the government’s Firemen. The reader follows the protagonist’s “radicalization” and the outcome of a critically stagnant society.
Today, it would be marketed as just another Dystopian YA story.
In actuality, it is one of the first English language dystopias presented after the 1st and 2nd World Wars altered the Western literary theme of hope and ultimate Utopianism to a darker view of human nature. Slightly behind Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World, this is one of the ground-breaking works that created the tropes for current YA books that many feel are inferior. If you’ve ever seen the original Alfred Hitchcock Presents, you know what I’m talking about; every cop or mystery show on the air since the early 60s has borrowed from that show, and that borrowing is the reason so many of those shows seem formulaic today.
If you haven’t seen that, I recommend steaming it (after you read this book). It’s great fun!
In my opinion, Fahrenheit 451 is prophetic and more relevant than ever!
Fahrenheit 451’s Relevance In the 21st Century Classroom.
Ray Bradbury will always be remembered as a giant in the arenas of science and speculative fiction.
I remember getting the list of incoming titles from my Junior High school librarian (because nerd) and then waiting days & weeks for the devils at Scholastic to pack the books onto a slightly-used, elderly burrow and aim it west and hope for the best.
Eventually, the poor beast would wander into town and collapse. At the time, I was especially excited for the arrival of authors like Bradbury and was delighted I didn’t have to fight off anyone to get at his short story collections of The Illustrated Man and The Martian Chronicles.
Later, after reading Fahrenheit 451, multiple ironies occurred to me.
This book, after re-reading it and re-writing it at a lower Lexile takes Bradbury from fiction writer through futurist straight in the realm of witchcraft. I love Bradbury, but this title is a hum-dinger because it aged itself out of the fiction genre.
Published while McCarthyism was in full swing, Bradbury had a lot on his mind. Bradbury was witnessing the nationwide chilling effect of the Red Scare on every citizen and industry, not just those who dared to dissent. In particular, he was worried about the burning of books and the effects of an increasingly illiterate populace on society. While he missed out on the internet and social media, be predicted the rise and outcome of a relentless 24-hour media barrage as social anesthesia, the effects of only having one source of truth with no critical thinking and what happens when we lose the ability think critically or even remember our collective history. I watch students that think they’re sneaky with tiny little sea shell earbuds watching personal video walls; They can tell you every piece of minutia about The Golden Girls, but can’t regurgitate an answer I gave them, literally, 2 seconds ago. I also teach English; I see the priority placed on sport and the lowered expectations for academics and reading, and I am concerned.
Bradbury was worried about the people losing the drive to read and comprehend.
We was afraid of what their replacements would do to us.
Note:
No burrows were harmed in this blog post. The school nurse handled the burrow.
Scholastic burrows were tended to by kindly schoolmarms who cared and fed them and then re-aimed to their destinations every morning.
Just like the Pony Express.
