Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451: The Authorized AdaptationHill and Wang
Creator(s): Original text by Ray Bradbury; Adapted and illustrated by Tim Hamilton.
Release Date: Out now
$30.00 (HC), $16.95 (TPB)
Format: 160 pgs.; Full Color; 6"x9"; Hardcover/Trade Paperback
Rating: Teen +
ISBN: 9780809051007
ICv2 Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars
Bradbury’s short novel on book burning has become a staple of high school and college reading lists. The dark, grim film version was a cult classic. Now, Tim Hamilton’s illustrations have given new life to this venerable work.
Taking place in an all-too-believable bleak future, the story is about firemen... the men whose job it is to burn books. What else would firemen do, after all? Any sensible society has fireproof houses, of course, and people watch television screens that take up entire walls, so why would they need the obsolete and dangerous ideas from the printed page. People want entertainment, not disturbing ideas…
Hamilton’s artwork is just realistic enough to make the scenes even more powerful, important when working with prose as strong as Bradbury’s. His version of the entertainment walls, and their contents, is even more frightening than when huge-screen televisions were still science fiction. Soap operas, giant fish and killer clowns become essential to lives devoid of meaning, or even thought. His depiction of the burning of books (and occasionally their readers) is traumatic to anyone who loves the printed word.
Because of scenes of violence, this book is for teens and up.
- Nick Smith
