I finished Fahrenheit 451 this week, as part of my goal to read over a 100 books this year.  I chose to read this one early in the year because it was selected for the Big Read.  During the months of February and March there will be lots of activities in Baton Rouge about this book.  In fact next week there will be training for those who are interested in serving as discussion leaders for the book.

The book was selected because of its great relevance for today.  In all of the writes ups that I seen about it, the writers have stressed the issue of censorship.  A while there is no doubt that the book stresses censorship, I think the greater lesson in the book is that people became so busy they didn’t want to read anymore.  People were willing to do with education because they craved entertainment.  I think this is more important lesson in the book.

One reason I say that is because of the poor school system here in Baton Rouge.  Just this week there was an article about 4 schools that might be taken over by the state because of poor performance.  One of the schools, Prescott Middle has been underachieving for 9 years now.  This past year’s review gave it a score of 38 (60 and below is considered to be unacceptable).  Prescott has been in the news several times over the past year or so.  There are issues at the school regarding the staff, lack of parent involvement, and violent students.  It’s not a good combination, but one that is very common in schools across the US.

In such situations, it is hard to believe that the students have the time, incentive or desire to read books such as Fahrenheit 451.  It is not as if suburban schools are much better though.  Kids are rushed from one activity to another, they spend little time actually talking to friends and family members (its much easier to send a text or post a note on their facebook wall).  Our world has become more like the world of Fahrenheit 451 than we may like to admit.

I have a new edition of the book that has an afterword added in 1984 or ‘85 I believe.  One of the things pointed out in that afterword by Bradbury is that there is more than one way to censor a book.  Just because we don’t burn them, doesn’t mean that have discarded them.

So pick up a book. Read it.  And share what you learned with others.