Fahrenheit 451
Recommended. Age: 14+. A Catholic review of this book for parents.
Our review
Guy Montag is a fireman, but in his world firemen burn books instead of putting out fires. He starts to wonder what is inside the books and hides some. He runs away and joins people who keep books alive by learning them by heart. This is a warning about a people who trade truth for screens and comfort. Montag wakes up, and the story ends in hope with men who carry books in their memory, including the Book of Ecclesiastes. Good Books for Catholic Kids recommends it for age fourteen and up and compares the book keepers to the monks who saved learning long ago. It has no sexual content. It does have a suicide attempt and a man burned to death, so it is for high schoolers.
For parents
Independent reading from fourteen, a good fit for ninth grade. Not a read-aloud for younger children. Common Sense Media says 13+ and Good Books for Catholic Kids says 14 and up, so Lumen follows the Catholic placement. Prepare your teen for three things: Mildred's overdose early in the book, an old woman who chooses to die with her books, and Montag burning his captain to death. Suicide is treated as ordinary in this society, and the book shows that as a sickness. Say plainly that life is God's gift and that despair is answered by hope. Ask: why do the people in this world stop reading on their own before the law forbids it? What do the wall screens do to Mildred? Was Montag right to kill Beatty, or did he do evil to escape? Why does Montag hold on to Ecclesiastes? What screens in our house crowd out silence, prayer and reading?