Fahrenheit 451

[3girls4me]

What age would you suggest for this book? This child has been mostly nourished on animal and nature books, history biographies, and things like Kate Seredy and Little House. She's in 6th grade. Is this too much of a jump? I haven't read it myself yet so am not sure. And I'm about to join a challenging book club so dont really have time to preread it.

Thoughts?

[misty.warden]

I'd say it depends on her sensitivity level (characters attempting suicide, oppressive police state style governments and such can be a lot to handle for some kids) and how much she'll understand the message about censorship. It was read in 8th grade when I was in PS, most of the kids got hung up on why anyone cared about old art being destroyed and didn't "get it".

 

I'd recommend skimming a summary at least before assigning it.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[LMD]

I wouldn't give it to my current 6th grader, and she's had plenty of scary/semi mature books.

 

There's some disturbing violence, ODing, burning people alive in their homes, trying to hit people in cars. The themes apart from the violence are a little mature for that age, imo, that I think it would be better saved for 8-9th minimum.

 

Eta- circe just did a podcast about this book that you may find interesting

https://www.circeinstitute.org/podcast/commons-9-fahrenheit-451-and-benedict-option-featuring-matt-bianco

Edited August 28, 2016 by LMD

[Tanaqui]

That's a normal high school level book. Honestly, I don't see the need to push high school and grown-up books down to the middle school level. There are plenty of perfectly good books written for that age level that your daughter will get more out of. If you want to start her on dystopian fiction, why not... oh, I don't know. The Other Side of the Island, or The Green-Sky Trilogy or The Last Book in the Universe? Something actually written for children, I mean.

[jjeepa]

My dd read it in 6th grade as part of an online literature class.  The class read it slowly and discussed the major themes.  She didn't like the book, but enjoyed the discussions.  However, I don't think she fully understood the book even with the discussions.  We are planning to revisit it again in high school.  I would recommend waiting.  

[3girls4me]

Thanks everyone! We will definitely postpone for a few years!

[Lori D.]

Previous posters have given input on the subject matter (and I definitely agree with them -- if your student is doing Little House and Kate Seredy, this will be WAAAYYYY too big of a jump up in intensity and mature topics). I'll just throw in my 2 cents worth based on the "readability" due to language choice and sentence structure, as well as background knowledge needed by a student to "get it".

 

While a lot of people recommend this one for middle school (7th/8th grade), from my experience of doing it with my own DSs (they were 9th/10th gr.), and then just recently with my gr. 7-12 Literature co-op class, I tend to vote for later due to Bradbury's unusual writing style and due to all the many MANY allusions to other works of Literature and historical/political people and events. My DSs and I were able to discuss as we went. For my Lit. class, I made a very long document with every one of the allusions and a quick explanation of each reference for them to look at to help them as they read -- and it was still a tough book for my Lit. class (ages 12-17) to get into. We spent 3 weeks on the book (1 week per section), which is short novel/longer novella length -- and it really wasn't until the third section that the students finally were getting a handle on the unique writing style. Once the older students cleared that hurdle, they were able to start thinking more deeply about the book and discussing -- the middle school students and young 9th graders never seemed to get to the thinking/discussing stage with Fahrenheit 451.

 

However, interestingly, almost all of the students ended up liking Bradbury's writing style by the time they finished Fahrenheit 451 (F-451) and voted to read Something Wicked This Way Comes (SWTWC) the following semester. While that one also has Bradbury's unique writing style and allusions, it is not quite so pronounced as in F-451, and SWTWC is much more about story and character, instead of the long philosophizing speeches that make up F-451.

 

JMO: If you have a strong/advanced reader (or an average reader with high interest in the work or the genre), great! Go for it and enjoy. :) Otherwise, I would wait until high school for Fahrenheit 451, and for middle school, make a few short stories the first introduction to Bradbury -- stories like: "All Summer in a Day"; "A Sound of Thunder"; and "The Veldt".

 

Hope that helps! Warmly, Lori D.

Edited August 29, 2016 by Lori D.

[MamaChicken]

I loved this book in middle school and proceeded to read everything Bradbury wrote that I could get my hands on. Then I read it as an adult and realized that it really didn't appreciate it as a kid. If your kid picks it up on her own, definitely encourage her to read it, if not, I'd recommend waiting. There's so much good stuff in there but better late than early.

[Emba]

I remember F. 451 as being a book we did in high school. At that point, we did mostly get it, and almost everyone in the class actually liked it. I had read it earlier, but I was an advanced reader, and loved dystopian science fiction. I'm sure I missed a lot, though.

[3girls4me]

Previous posters have given input on the subject matter (and I definitely agree with them -- if your student is doing Little House and Kate Seredy, this will be WAAAYYYY too big of a jump up in intensity and mature topics). I'll just throw in my 2 cents worth based on the "readability" due to language choice and sentence structure, as well as background knowledge needed by a student to "get it".

 

 

Thanks for your thoughts.  (and everyone else too)

I definitely think we will wait.  But I wanted to clarify - she's not still reading Little House type books. Those have just been some prominent books in the past.  She is an extremely good reader and likes deeper content, so we are looking to find that for her. But this sounds way farther than we wanted to go.  I listened to the Circe podcast on this book and it was really good.  It was hard to tell from just that if we should take a stab at the book, but based on these comments, we'll save it for high school.

Thanks everyone!

[Lori D.]

... I wanted to clarify - she's not still reading Little House type books...

 

oops! I misunderstood. :)

 

 

... She is an extremely good reader and likes deeper content, so we are looking to find that for her... It was hard to tell from just that if we should take a stab at the book, but based on these comments, we'll save it for high school...

 

For a quick 10-minute preview, you could read the first 6-8 pages here. That would give you a pretty good idea of the writing style and content, and if it your DD is ready for it or not. :)

 

You might enjoy exploring some short stories as a starting point for reading deeper and discussing deeper; this this thread for ideas: "Short Stories for an 11yo Girl". 

 

Some book ideas for DD:

The Secret Garden (Burnett)

Little Women (Alcott)

Anne of Green Gables (Montgomery)

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Twain)

Rikki Tikki Tavi (Kipling)

Ben Hur (Wallace)

Friendly Persuasion (West)

Tuck Everlasting (Babbitt)

Below the Root (Snyder)

The Hobbit (Tolkien)

A Wrinkle in Time (L'Engle)

Flowers for Algernon (Keyes) -- the short story, NOT the longer version

Island of the Blue Dolphins (O'Dell)

Indian Captive (Lenski)

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (Taylor)

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle (Avi)

Bridge to Terebithia (Paterson)

The Outsiders (Hinton)

Edited August 30, 2016 by Lori D.

[LMD]

Dd11 did tuck everlasting and bridge to terabithia this year and liked them. She just pulled little women off the shelf - of her own accord - because I was talking about it. I'm rereading it on audio and forgot how beautiful it is.

[3girls4me]

 

 

Some book ideas for DD:

The Secret Garden (Burnett)

Little Women (Alcott)

Anne of Green Gables (Montgomery)

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Twain)

Rikki Tikki Tavi (Kipling)

Ben Hur (Wallace)

Friendly Persuasion (West)

Tuck Everlasting (Babbitt)

Below the Root (Snyder)

The Hobbit (Tolkien)

A Wrinkle in Time (L'Engle)

Flowers for Algernon (Keyes) -- the short story, NOT the longer version

Island of the Blue Dolphins (O'Dell)

Indian Captive (Lenski)

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (Taylor)

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle (Avi)

Bridge to Terebithia (Paterson)

The Outsiders (Hinton)

 

Thanks Lori! We already had Bridge to Teribithia and Tuck Everlasting for this year and I see a few more I may let her start also!