Southwest Licking School District

Literature Selection Review

Teacher: Paula Ball School: Watkins Memorial High School

Book Title: Fahrenheit 451 Genre: Fiction

Author: Ray Bradbury Publisher: Ballantine Books

Book Summary and summary citation:

Fahrenheit 451 takes place in an unspecified future time in an anti-intellectual America that has completely abandoned self-control. This America is filled with lawlessness in the streets ranging from teenagers crashing cars into people to firemen at a station who set their 'mechanical hound' to hunt various animals by their scent for the simple and grotesque pleasure of watching them die. Anyone caught reading or possessing books is, at the minimum, confined to a mental hospital while the books are burned by the firemen. Burnt books mainly include famous works of literature, such as William Shakespeare, Walt Whitman and William Faulkner, as well as the Bible and all historical texts.

Instructional Rationale/Objectives:

Read increasingly challenging texts, comparing these texts to previously read texts

Identify, analyze, and evaluate persuasive techniques used in literature

Course big idea: why writing matters

Review #1

Amazon.com Review

In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury's classic, frightening vision of the future, firemen don't put out fires--they start them in order to burn books. Bradbury's vividly painted society holds up the appearance of happiness as the highest goal--a place where trivial information is good, and knowledge and ideas are bad. Fire Captain Beatty explains it this way, "Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs.... Don't give them slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy."

Guy Montag is a book-burning fireman undergoing a crisis of faith. His wife spends all day with her television "family," imploring Montag to work harder so that they can afford a fourth TV wall. Their dull, empty life sharply contrasts with that of his next-door neighbor Clarisse, a young girl thrilled by the ideas in books, and more interested in what she can see in the world around her than in the mindless chatter of the tube. When Clarisse disappears mysteriously, Montag is moved to make some changes, and starts hiding books in his home. Eventually, his wife turns him in, and he must answer the call to burn his secret cache of books. After fleeing to avoid arrest, Montag winds up joining an outlaw band of scholars who keep the contents of books in their heads, waiting for the time society will once again need the wisdom of literature.

Bradbury--the author of more than 500 short stories, novels, plays, and poems, including The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man--is the winner of many awards, including the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America. Readers ages 13 to 93 will be swept up in the harrowing suspense of Fahrenheit 451, and no doubt will join the hordes of Bradbury fans worldwide. --Neil Roseman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review #2

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. After years of working as a fireman--one who burns books and enjoys his work- -Guy Montag meets a young girl who makes him question his profession and the values of the society in which he lives. Stephan Hoye's narration is perfectly matched to the subject matter: his tone is low and ominous, and his cadence shifts with the prose to ratchet up tension and suspense. He produces spot-on voices, and his versions of the gruff Captain Beatty, the playful Clarisse, and the fearful professor Faber are especially impressive. A Ballantine paperback. (Aug.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

What alternate text(s) could also fulfill the instructional requirements?

Title: 1984 by George Orwell

Document any potentially controversial content:

Frequent language, burning of books, violence

GRADE LEVEL(S): 9 and 10

Reading level of this title (if applicable): 9/10

Date Submitted to website: August 1, 2011

Suggested Professional Literary Review Sources:

School Library Journal

Horn Book

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates)

Library Journal

Book Links

Publisher's Weekly

Booklist

Kirkus Review

Wilson Library Catalog

English Journal (and other resources of the National Council of Teachers of English)

The Reading Teacher (International Reading Association)

Literature for Today’s Young Adults