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Fahrenheit 451 / Ray Bradbury’s Farenheit 451 [Hardcover] chapter summaries and review: 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
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Review

‘Fahrenheit 451 is the most skilfully drawn of all science fiction’s conformist hells’ Kingsley Amis ‘Bradbury’s is a very great and unusual talent’ Christopher Isherwood ‘Ray Bradbury has a powerful and mysterious imagination which would undoubtedly earn the respect of Edgar Allen Poe’ Guardian ‘It is impossible not to admire the vigour of his prose, similes and metaphors constantly cascading from his imagination’ Spectator ‘As a science fiction writer, Ray Bradbury has long been streets ahead of anyone else’ Daily Telegraph
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Around The World In 80 Days [Hardcover] chapter summaries and review: From School Library Journal

Grade 6 Up?To most modern kids, classics may be great, worthy, even exciting stories, but they were written in and for their own times and the context can sometimes be obscure. Using the visually irresistible printing techniques popularized by the “Eyewitness” series, these two books, when prominently displayed, will probably attract more impulse readers than some of the dustier editions. But do they accomplish their stated aim? Direct textual illustration is plentiful, lively, and useful. The reproductions of prints, photographs, and maps that pepper each page and are intended to enhance readers’ grasp of the times, however, are a mixed success. There is a sameness to them and an arbitrary feel to their use. Pirate buffs will find Treasure Island’s variety of ship drawings, details of sailing minutiae, and photographs of pieces of eight or guns and swords quite satisfying. Verne’s work is less enhanced by its graphics. This episodic travelogue would be best served by lots of clear maps with the route well marked. But the few maps shown are so small that the legends are unreadable and country and city names are blurred. Limitations aside, the initial appeal of this fresh approach may serve to attract some new readers to these enduring stories that have managed without any help for this long.?Sally Margolis, formerly at Deerfield Public Library, IL
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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From Kirkus Reviews

Around The World In Eighty Days ($23.99; $15.99 paper; May 1996; 296 pp.; 0- 670-86917-1; paper 0-670-86793-4): An entry in The Whole Story series, this is an annotated edition of the 1873 classic, printed on coated stock and enhanced by both atmospheric new paintings and hundreds of postage-stampsized 19th-century photos and prints. The explanatory captions (credited to Jean-Pierre Verdet only on the copyright page) accompanying the latter are largely superfluous, although they do add random snippets of historical background to the journey. It’s the views of old ships and trains, of costumed natives, and distant ports of call–from Port Said to San Francisco–that evoke the tale’s panorama of the exotic, just as the many lurid Verne trading cards and other spinoffs capture the plot’s melodramatic highlights. A good way to put both book and story in context for young armchair travelers. (Fiction. 11-15) — Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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Treasure Island [Paperback] chapter summaries and review: Amazon.com Review

Climb aboard for the swashbuckling adventure of a lifetime. Treasure Islandhas enthralled (and caused slight seasickness) for decades. The names Long John Silver and Jim Hawkins are destined to remain pieces of folklore for as long as children want to read Robert Louis Stevenson’s most famous book. With it’s dastardly plot and motley crew of rogues and villains, it seems unlikely that children will ever say no to this timeless classic. –Naomi Gesinger
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From School Library Journal

Grade 6-10– The striking jacket of this new edition of an old classic promises more than it delivers. Thirty-one plates, full-color but predominantly in earth-tone hues, are dropped into the text, sometimes mindlessly. For example, the cover art, a pirate digging in sand among pieces of eight, reappears on page 61, facing text that sketches the lives of pirates, “gentlemen of fortune.” The text never relates to the art. Ingpen’s style is impressionistic but evocative of N. C. Wyeth’s illustrations for the same title (Scribners, 1911, reissued by Time Warner, 1992); his plate of Blind Pow shows the subject in much the same pose. In some paintings, Ingpen uses angle and perspective effectively; interest is added by superimposing people upon background, or vice-versa. Spot line drawings, some used more than once, accent many pages. Unfortunately, in some cases, a subject is not recognizable from one page to the next, and the hazy impressionistic style makes it difficult to interpret some pictures. Although superficially handsome, this title has stiff competition from many other editions of Treasure Island , the Wyeth edition, especially. –Carolyn Noah, Central Mass. Regional Library System, Worcester, MA
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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