Science fiction author Ray Bradbury died Wednesday morning at age 91. Readers may know him best as the author of "Fahrenheit 451," which I (sadly) read for the first time just a few years ago.

Below, a remembrance of him through Twitter and YouTube in a Storify by the Mercury News:



-- Cheryl Sadler | CSadler@News-Herald.com | @nhcheryl

I couldn't let the week pass without giving my 2 cents on books everyone should read before graduation high school, after Tricia and Jason.

I'll admit that I haven't read all of the books on the original list, nor Tricia's or Jason's. I'll agree with "Catcher in the Rye" (which I just read for the first time this year), but I'm not sure if I think the others they named should be required.

I'll add to my list F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby," which spurred in-depth conversations in my 11th-grade honors English class about symbolism and good writing. Since then, "Gatsby" has been one of my all-time favorite books.

I might also add to the list "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury, which I just read for the first time this week. My ninth-grade honors English class opted to read Bram Stoker's "Dracula" instead. The "Dracula" reading has come in handy for all the vampire knowledge I obtained (totally helpful when watching "Buffy the Vampire Slayer to know how vampires can be killed), but I missed out on Bradbury's classic that hammers home the importance of reading, learning and not censoring. I wish I would have read this book in high school.

I don't like that this list I made includes no female writers. Tricia's pick of "My Sister's Keeper" is a good one, in my opinion, because Jodi Picoult is a fantastic writer (seriously, Jason), and "My Sister's Keeper" may be my favorite book of hers. I also don't have any modern literature on this list. It's tough to keep it just to three books.

While I was trying to decide what books I would want to include on my list, all I could think about is how important it is for people to read -- no matter what they read. Literacy is a big key to success. We saw this in theaters with "Precious: Based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire," when Precious and her classmates were encouraged to write whatever they wanted to write every day, and to read their journals to their classmates. Their teacher helped them improve their literacy skills, just from encouraging them to exercise them.

On a more personal note, a former roommate of mine did the same sort of exercise to help middle-schoolers during her student teaching in college. When she got to the school, several of the students were failing reading class. She told each student who was failing that they needed to come in either before school, during lunch or after school and read. She came in early, stayed late and ate lunch in the classroom to ensure that the kids would read. When they raised their grades, they did not have to come in any more; but many of them continued to do so. By the end of the school year, no one was failing -- all because their teacher asked them to sit and read.


-- Cheryl Sadler
CSadler@News-Herald.com

I must confess I am not a reader of short stories.

I enjoy the ones I've read immensely, but I'm always left wanting so much more.

I recently reread "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I thought I was preparing to see the movie, but that hasn't happened yet. That's OK. Fitzgerald is one of my favorite authors, so it was a pleasure to reread this story.

Although ... Benjamin is born as an old man and the other characters merely treat that as an oddity ... what??? No investigation. No hand-wringing wonder. Nothing.

That spoils the rest of it for me.

It is an interesting concept, raising all sorts of questions about what would it really be like to be youthful with all the knowledge of age. (Notice how few ponder the reverse.)

Perhaps this story just tries to tackle too much in its short format.

As I said I read few short stories, but my two favorites have stuck with me for more than 30 years.

"All Summer in a Day" by Ray Bradbury is the story of a group of 9-year-olds on a Venus where the sun shines and the rain stops only one hour every seven years. One of the kids moved to Venus when she was 5 and so remembers what the sun was like. This sets her apart from the other children. And they don't like that.

"Bernice Bobs Her Hair" by F. Scott Fitzgerald tells the story of one cousin visiting another and stealing her thunder with talk of bobbing her hair. Her cousin is jealous and exacts her revenge. But Bernice gets the last word.

I've never really thought about the similar themes of these two tales. Both look at how cruel we can be to one another.

Where I think these two work as short stories is in their singular focus.

And, while I'm not ready to give up my novel reading, I would like to add a few short stories to the mix.

Any suggestions?

- Tricia Ambrose