quote:

Originally posted by Mr. Dark:
The first Bradbury book I read was Farenheit 451 -- in 9th grade. I was, except for Mad magazines and Marvel comics, a total non-reader. I was in my adolescence and this was the era of the mini-skirt and the halter top. What could reading do to compete with that? My parents took me to a counselor to find out what to do about my refusal to read. The counselor told them to get me all the Mad Magazines and Marvel Comics they could, and to encourage me to read whatever was interesting.

In 9th grade, a friend of mine urged me to read Farenheit 451. I resisted. He loaned me his copy. I reluctantly took it. When I finally did read it, I was in shock. It had never occured to me that ideas mattered. The style and poetry of it . . . the haunting nature of the story and dialogue . . . all got to me. I took the book back to him and asked if he had any more. He gave me either The Martian Chronicles or Something Wicked This Way Comes -- I honestly don't remember which. In either case, I read it, loved it, and returned the book. I then went down to the bookstore and bought everything by Bradbury they had on the shelf.

I had become a reader! Through High School, I read about 60 books a year. From Bradbury, I went on to Clark, Sturgeon, Silverberg, Clarke, Heinlein, Ellison, Pohl, Herbert, Tolkien, Aldiss, etc. What was so fascinating to me was that reading Bradbury got me reading sci-fi, and reading sci-fi got me turned on to literature, philosophy, Theology, religion, etc.

For example, I was reading Starship Troopers and was talking to my dad about the requirement to serve two years in volunteer service for the government before you could earn the right to vote. The idea of having to actually "earn" a voice in government was interesting. My dad asked if I was interested in types of governments, and I said I was. He pulled down Plato's Republic off his shelf. I read that. Before I was out of HS, I was reading James, Aristotle, Plato, Sartre, Camus, etc. I wasn't (and continue not to be) a genius. I had just come alive intellectually. Literature, philosophy, religion, theology all actually had things to say about the human condition!

I have since earned a Masters Degree in English and another Masters Degree in Philosophy. When I teach Jr High and community college, Bradbury is always somewhere in the curriculum.

It is interesting to me that all of this education, passion, pleasure, and fun, stems from a 9th grade reading of Bradbury's Farenheit 451.

Can I pick a favorite? I don't think so. I absolutely love a lot of his short stories. I love Farenheit 451. I love Something Wicked This Way Comes. I love Martian Chronicles (I have students compare it to Hemingway's In Our Time and Anderson's Winesberg, Ohio.). Stories like The Pedestrian, All Summer in a Day, Kaleidescope, The Veldt, The Dwarf, The Skeleton, The Rocket Man, The Long Rain . . . these stories, when I read them now (at the ripe old age of 46) are still just as alive to me as they were when I was young.

Anyway, this was my start to Bradbury. Reading Bradbury continues to be an inspiration to me. I never tire of re-reading his work.