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All Summer in a Day
Margot is a nine-year-old girl whose family moved from Earth to Venus when she was four. She remembers the sun shining on Earth, something it rarely does on Venus. "All Summer in a Day" takes place on the one day when Venus's rain will stop, and the sun will shine for a couple of hours only.
6 pages, ebook
First published March 1, 1954
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About the author
Ray Bradbury
2,560 books25.1k followersRay Douglas Bradbury was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of genres, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and realistic fiction.
Bradbury is best known for his novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and his short-story collections The Martian Chronicles (1950), The Illustrated Man (1951), and The October Country (1955). Other notable works include the coming of age novel Dandelion Wine (1957), the dark fantasy Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962) and the fictionalized memoir Green Shadows, White Whale (1992). He also wrote and consulted on screenplays and television scripts, including Moby Dick and It Came from Outer Space. Many of his works were adapted into television and film productions as well as comic books. Bradbury also wrote poetry which has been published in several collections, such as They Have Not Seen the Stars (2001).
The New York Times called Bradbury "An author whose fanciful imagination, poetic prose, and mature understanding of human character have won him an international reputation" and "the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream".
Bradbury is best known for his novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and his short-story collections The Martian Chronicles (1950), The Illustrated Man (1951), and The October Country (1955). Other notable works include the coming of age novel Dandelion Wine (1957), the dark fantasy Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962) and the fictionalized memoir Green Shadows, White Whale (1992). He also wrote and consulted on screenplays and television scripts, including Moby Dick and It Came from Outer Space. Many of his works were adapted into television and film productions as well as comic books. Bradbury also wrote poetry which has been published in several collections, such as They Have Not Seen the Stars (2001).
The New York Times called Bradbury "An author whose fanciful imagination, poetic prose, and mature understanding of human character have won him an international reputation" and "the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream".
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November 4, 2024
All Summer in a Day is a science fiction short story by the American writer Ray Bradbury. It was first published in the March 1954 issue of “The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction” before being included in a compilation. Ray Bradbury is in my view a unique author, who excelled at creating a fantastical feeling to all his speculative writing. In fact although his science fiction has a solid traditional base, the way in which he tells the tale, seems often more akin to fantasy.
Near the beginning of All Summer in a Day, we learn:
“It had been raining for seven years; thousands upon thousands of days compounded and filled from one end to the other with rain, with the drum and gush of water, with the sweet crystal fall of showers and the concussion of storms so heavy they were tidal waves come over the islands. A thousand forests had been crushed under the rain and grown up a thousand times to be crushed again. And this was the way life was forever on the planet Venus, and this was the schoolroom of the children of the rocket men and women who had come to a raining world to set up civilization and live out their lives.”
Just pause a while, and imagine this. Nonstop rain for seven years. No sun, no yellow brightness, no warmth or light that was not unnatural. The nine year old children of the families who had migrated from Earth to Venus found themselves idly “dreaming and remembering gold or a yellow crayon or a coin large enough to buy the world with”.
But for one child, Margot, her memories were more recent. She intrinsically knew her classmate’s deep-seated impressions:
“they thought they remembered a warmness, like a blushing in the face, in the body, in the arms and legs and trembling hands.
But such was not now their reality:
“they always awoke to the tatting drum, the endless shaking down of clear bead necklaces upon the roof, the walk, the gardens, the forests, and their dreams were gone.”
This was the children’s world, and for the main part they seemed happy in it. But the teachers had tried to prepare them for this momentous, once every seven yearly, occasion. To prepare for the actual day, they had constantly been reading about the sun and completing various classroom activities, such as writing a poem about it.
And then there was Margot, pale and drained, almost ghostly, “as if she had been lost in the rain for years.” She was depressed and had yearned daily for the sun she knew back on Earth. She tried to share what the sun was like, describing the sun as “a penny”, or “like a fire in the stove”. The other children, being too young ever to have seen it themselves, do not believe her, and she retreats, becoming ostracised and alone. Her poem was different, and her experience, so much more recent and intimate, led to the short metaphoric thought:
“I think the sun is a flower,
That blooms for just one hour.“
“the biggest crime of all was that she had come here only five years ago from Earth, and she remembered the sun and the way the sun was and the sky was when she was four in Ohio. And they, they had been on Venus all their lives, and they had been only two years old when last the sun came out and had long since forgotten the color and heat of it and the way it really was.”
Margot was different. She had not lived in this human colony on Venus for nearly all her life. So Margot was picked on; bullied either from envy or disbelief, or a little of both, by her classmates. And what of the rumour, that Margot may be taken back to Earth next year by her parents. Was this too, as the others insisted, a “lie”? Was it simply resentment of her claiming to have superior knowledge? Or was it that all too human fault, a professed disbelief in something that they secretly yearned to be true, this neighbouring planet with a magical sun, and wished to have for themselves? Most likely it was all these, in different combinations and proportions, for each individual child.
Would the sun really appear, as if by magic, that day? Or was that also merely a joke, playing to the children’s deepest desires?
“It was all a joke, wasn’t it? Nothing’s happening today.”
And so the scene for the tragedy is set.
Children, so often just living in the moment, do things impetuously.
Was this, as one reviewer says, a “despicable act”. Can we have guilt without knowledge and experience? It seems unlikely, and the tragedy is that these children are at the stage where this moral sense is just budding, and incompletely formed. They will in the end be chastened by their own thoughts, and new awareness of what has been caused.
There was perhaps one true bully, , who for some unknown reason may have stayed this way, unrepentant, all his life. But the others are affected by some primal urge which he brings out in them, and indeed lays dormant in all of us — as well as the more developed ability to feel compassion — before we learn to be “civilised”. A novel which was written just 5 years later, develops this theme to its logical conclusion. It is of course, “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding.
It is impossible to capture the fleeting but vivid impressions Ray Bradbury’s language conveys. His writing is full of metaphor and poetic imagery. He describes Venus as:
“the color of rubber and ash, this jungle, from the many years without sun. It was the color of stones and white cheeses and ink, and it was the color of the moon”.
And later he perfectly captures the children’s wonder, amazement and utter joy, at experiencing for the first time (except in perhaps a deep-seated vague memory from infancy) something so essentially primeval, and necessary to the human condition. However sophisticated scientific development had become, the “sun lamps” were never going to capture the same glorious, throbbing, heat of the sun, which has created a vivacity of colour throughout the jungle growth:
“It was the color of flaming bronze and it was very large. And the sky around it was a blazing blue tile color. And the jungle burned with sunlight.
The children were fascinated, mesmerised by the gigantic sphere:
“… most of all they squinted at the sun until the tears ran down their faces; they put their hands up to that yellowness and that amazing blueness and they breathed of the fresh, fresh air and listened and listened to the silence which suspended them in a blessed sea of no sound and no motion. They looked at everything and savored everything.”
They bask in its power, blissfully soaking up the life-giving sunshine.
Some think this story is too short, or does not end properly. Some say it stopped just when they as readers had started to get interested. But for me, it is perfect. Yes, is is truncated, but this is purposely and elegantly constructed. It is not really a cliffhanger, but more designed to make us think about the mysteries and tragedies of human nature, social behaviour and learning.
Why write a drawn-out ending, which would merely spell everything out in a mundane way, when all the perceptions and events have been set out so clearly, in readiness for us to truly comprehend all its deeper aspects? We already know how each person in this story would feel. And surely this story is more about the human condition; about how we grow and learn, how we revel in our new experiences, but need to also learn how not to be cruel, or deny them to others in a thoughtless moment. This is maturity, and often a difficult concept for the young of our species to grasp.
Just before the devastating lightbulb moment of the ending, we witness one of the girls crying out, because she has caught, and is cradling, a huge raindrop in her hand. There had been just two hours of the wonderful, glorious, enchanting sun, and now it would stop again, and they would have incessant rain again, for seven more years. Everyone stopped, and stood for a moment, thinking about how wonderful the sun felt on their skins, whilst the rain clouds gradually moved in. Thunderclaps sounded, then came flashes of lightning, and the children ran back inside as the sun retreated again, and the rain began to fall harder.
And just as all the children paused for a moment, before re-entering the tunnels, to reflect on how wonderful the experience had been,
We see here the dawning moment of a sense of morality, in our culture at least. We see the uncertainty, a sense of growing empathy. And yes, we see the guilt:
“They could not meet each other’s glances. Their faces were solemn and pale. They looked at their hands and feet, their faces down.”
more by pausing for a while, and feeling it for ourselves? We need just a few moments of quiet contemplation of this utter emptiness of being. This is why the ending is so timely.
We need the stillness; we need to experience and empathise. No words - they have all been said. For me, the story ends at precisely the right point. It has a near-perfect poignancy.
Yet I do hesitate before rating this at 5 stars, close though it comes. The speculative ideas hit home, and yet for 1954, the science seems a bit rickety. It belongs more to an earlier time, when little was known about our “other” neighbouring planet (as opposed to Mars, the one more usually featured in Science Fiction). From the 19th century onwards, Science Fiction writers had had free rein to speculate on what lay beneath its impenetrable cloud. It was know to be a similar size to Earth, and then was discovered to have a substantial atmosphere. Since it is closer to the Sun than Earth, this led to the the idea that the planet would be warmer, and habitable by humans.
In 1930, in Olaf Stapledon’s “Last and First Men”, he envisaged Venus as being mostly ocean, and having fierce tropical storms. C.S. Lewis’s 1943 vision of Venus “Perelandra” also portrayed a planet almost covered by an ocean filled with exotic aquatic life, much as Earth had been, way in the past, in the Cambrian Period. Others imagined swamps and tropical rain forests, more in line with Earth’s Carboniferous period. And a third group of writers worked from the theory that the cloud cover was water vapour, and that Venus is a hot, dry planet, in which the surface has dust storms, above which the atmosphere holds. As Carl Sagan said in 1978:
“all classic science‐fiction devices, are all, in fact, based upon earlier misapprehensions by planetary scientists.”
Even when this story was written, there was still a lack of verified knowledge about conditions on Venus. Astronomers knew Venus was covered in clouds, and as we have seen, many thought it might be wet. Yet the idea to me of creating a little bit of home, set amidst such different and harsh environmental locations, does not quite convince. Perhaps though, it should. After all, the early British explorers ludicrously insisted on taking various paraphernalia such as full evening dress, dining sets, chandeliers, and grand pianos, on their explorations into remote areas. But to me it does feel more like the 19th century, or early 20th, rather than mid-20th century.
I also wonder whether Ray Bradbury’s contention that after hundreds (if not thousands) more years of human evolution and adaptation, in his imagined setting of Venus, bullying would still be present. In his opinion, then, is bullying others who are deemed inferior so deeply-rooted in human nature, that it perpetuates across the centuries? Social mores are changing all the time, and what we accept as “normal” varies immensely just from one century to another.
Think how we in the 21st century now regard the Imperialistic heroes of old, who imposed what they considered their superior, civilised views, on a less developed country. Now the feelings against these erstwhile highly respected men, sometimes runs so high that if their statues are not removed from public sites, they are vandalised. For these reservations, scientific and sociological, I can’t just quite nudge it into my rare 5 star rating, although it’s a close thing. I find it, as I do the best short stories, very thought-provoking, and love Ray Bradbury’s lyricism.
All Summer in a Day is not just another story about bullying. It is a poignant tale, about ignorance, integration, the difficulties of being accepted into a new culture, and accepting difference. In a sense it is a version of an immigrant story, complete with jealousy, incomprehension — and resentment or envy of a financial lifestyle which may enable Margot’s family to go back home to Earth.
It also has a notable spiritual or mystical component. The sun gives life, and sustenance, which these children have never had. The children here are pale and colourless, not just literally and physically but also emotionally. They have been deprived of a fundamental need. We have little or no back story, but should it really surprise us that children in such a hostile environment would develop in a different, more hostile way, with different concerns? Is it surprising that they have less compassion, or awareness of difference, than children living on Earth?
The lack of sun has not only leached away the colour of their skins, but also their ability to develop compassion and empathy for other people. They do not gain this until they have experienced the sun’s life-giving rays for themselves. And the sun is not only life-giving to the colonists of Venus, but also to the landscape as well. It is almost impossible to imagine the reality of such a life, especially for those of us living in a temperate zone.
We see that without ever experiencing the gentle warmth of the sun, the children find it easy to learn to be bad-tempered and spiteful, and to mock what they do not understand.
At the end of the story, not only have they learned compassion, and will have the guilt of their actions in their minds for a long while, but also they have learned a sense of loss for themselves. From accepting the constant rain as their norm, now after the brief interlude of glorious sun, when the rain begins to fall once again, they are crestfallen, sorrowfully asking their teacher, “Will it be seven more years?” It will indeed be a difficult switch now for these children, back to the constant rain. Who has lost more?
“‘It’s like a penny,’ she said once, eyes closed.
‘No it’s not!’ the children cried.
‘It’s like a fire,’ she said, ‘in the stove.’
‘You’re lying, you don’t remember!’ cried the children.“
These children are no longer the same as they were, before what proved for them to be a miraculous, life-transforming experience. They have paid a high price, but they have come to learn what we all know. In Ray Bradbury’s profound story, the sun is a positive symbol of life, and our essential humanity. Even at the beginning of the story, the children pressed together to look out the window, “like so many roses, so many weeds.” It is the sun which gives us a broader range of emotion, gives us colour, life and hope — and sometimes the promise of tomorrow. The children are now no longer weeds, but have emerged into flowers.
“It was as if, in the midst of a film concerning an avalanche, a tornado, a hurricane, a volcanic eruption, something had, first, gone wrong with the sound apparatus, thus muffling and finally cutting off all noise, all of the blasts and repercussions and thunders, and then, second, ripped the film from the projector and inserted in its place a beautiful tropical slide which did not move or tremor. The world ground to a standstill. The silence was so immense and unbelievable that you felt your ears had been stuffed or you had lost your hearing altogether.”
And oddly, perhaps serendipitously, Ray Bradbury himself died the same day as a very rare celestial event — a transit of Venus across the Sun — occurred.
Near the beginning of All Summer in a Day, we learn:
“It had been raining for seven years; thousands upon thousands of days compounded and filled from one end to the other with rain, with the drum and gush of water, with the sweet crystal fall of showers and the concussion of storms so heavy they were tidal waves come over the islands. A thousand forests had been crushed under the rain and grown up a thousand times to be crushed again. And this was the way life was forever on the planet Venus, and this was the schoolroom of the children of the rocket men and women who had come to a raining world to set up civilization and live out their lives.”
Just pause a while, and imagine this. Nonstop rain for seven years. No sun, no yellow brightness, no warmth or light that was not unnatural. The nine year old children of the families who had migrated from Earth to Venus found themselves idly “dreaming and remembering gold or a yellow crayon or a coin large enough to buy the world with”.
But for one child, Margot, her memories were more recent. She intrinsically knew her classmate’s deep-seated impressions:
“they thought they remembered a warmness, like a blushing in the face, in the body, in the arms and legs and trembling hands.
But such was not now their reality:
“they always awoke to the tatting drum, the endless shaking down of clear bead necklaces upon the roof, the walk, the gardens, the forests, and their dreams were gone.”
This was the children’s world, and for the main part they seemed happy in it. But the teachers had tried to prepare them for this momentous, once every seven yearly, occasion. To prepare for the actual day, they had constantly been reading about the sun and completing various classroom activities, such as writing a poem about it.
And then there was Margot, pale and drained, almost ghostly, “as if she had been lost in the rain for years.” She was depressed and had yearned daily for the sun she knew back on Earth. She tried to share what the sun was like, describing the sun as “a penny”, or “like a fire in the stove”. The other children, being too young ever to have seen it themselves, do not believe her, and she retreats, becoming ostracised and alone. Her poem was different, and her experience, so much more recent and intimate, led to the short metaphoric thought:
“I think the sun is a flower,
That blooms for just one hour.“
“the biggest crime of all was that she had come here only five years ago from Earth, and she remembered the sun and the way the sun was and the sky was when she was four in Ohio. And they, they had been on Venus all their lives, and they had been only two years old when last the sun came out and had long since forgotten the color and heat of it and the way it really was.”
Margot was different. She had not lived in this human colony on Venus for nearly all her life. So Margot was picked on; bullied either from envy or disbelief, or a little of both, by her classmates. And what of the rumour, that Margot may be taken back to Earth next year by her parents. Was this too, as the others insisted, a “lie”? Was it simply resentment of her claiming to have superior knowledge? Or was it that all too human fault, a professed disbelief in something that they secretly yearned to be true, this neighbouring planet with a magical sun, and wished to have for themselves? Most likely it was all these, in different combinations and proportions, for each individual child.
Would the sun really appear, as if by magic, that day? Or was that also merely a joke, playing to the children’s deepest desires?
“It was all a joke, wasn’t it? Nothing’s happening today.”
And so the scene for the tragedy is set.
Children, so often just living in the moment, do things impetuously.
Was this, as one reviewer says, a “despicable act”. Can we have guilt without knowledge and experience? It seems unlikely, and the tragedy is that these children are at the stage where this moral sense is just budding, and incompletely formed. They will in the end be chastened by their own thoughts, and new awareness of what has been caused.
There was perhaps one true bully, , who for some unknown reason may have stayed this way, unrepentant, all his life. But the others are affected by some primal urge which he brings out in them, and indeed lays dormant in all of us — as well as the more developed ability to feel compassion — before we learn to be “civilised”. A novel which was written just 5 years later, develops this theme to its logical conclusion. It is of course, “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding.
It is impossible to capture the fleeting but vivid impressions Ray Bradbury’s language conveys. His writing is full of metaphor and poetic imagery. He describes Venus as:
“the color of rubber and ash, this jungle, from the many years without sun. It was the color of stones and white cheeses and ink, and it was the color of the moon”.
And later he perfectly captures the children’s wonder, amazement and utter joy, at experiencing for the first time (except in perhaps a deep-seated vague memory from infancy) something so essentially primeval, and necessary to the human condition. However sophisticated scientific development had become, the “sun lamps” were never going to capture the same glorious, throbbing, heat of the sun, which has created a vivacity of colour throughout the jungle growth:
“It was the color of flaming bronze and it was very large. And the sky around it was a blazing blue tile color. And the jungle burned with sunlight.
The children were fascinated, mesmerised by the gigantic sphere:
“… most of all they squinted at the sun until the tears ran down their faces; they put their hands up to that yellowness and that amazing blueness and they breathed of the fresh, fresh air and listened and listened to the silence which suspended them in a blessed sea of no sound and no motion. They looked at everything and savored everything.”
They bask in its power, blissfully soaking up the life-giving sunshine.
Some think this story is too short, or does not end properly. Some say it stopped just when they as readers had started to get interested. But for me, it is perfect. Yes, is is truncated, but this is purposely and elegantly constructed. It is not really a cliffhanger, but more designed to make us think about the mysteries and tragedies of human nature, social behaviour and learning.
Why write a drawn-out ending, which would merely spell everything out in a mundane way, when all the perceptions and events have been set out so clearly, in readiness for us to truly comprehend all its deeper aspects? We already know how each person in this story would feel. And surely this story is more about the human condition; about how we grow and learn, how we revel in our new experiences, but need to also learn how not to be cruel, or deny them to others in a thoughtless moment. This is maturity, and often a difficult concept for the young of our species to grasp.
Just before the devastating lightbulb moment of the ending, we witness one of the girls crying out, because she has caught, and is cradling, a huge raindrop in her hand. There had been just two hours of the wonderful, glorious, enchanting sun, and now it would stop again, and they would have incessant rain again, for seven more years. Everyone stopped, and stood for a moment, thinking about how wonderful the sun felt on their skins, whilst the rain clouds gradually moved in. Thunderclaps sounded, then came flashes of lightning, and the children ran back inside as the sun retreated again, and the rain began to fall harder.
And just as all the children paused for a moment, before re-entering the tunnels, to reflect on how wonderful the experience had been,
We see here the dawning moment of a sense of morality, in our culture at least. We see the uncertainty, a sense of growing empathy. And yes, we see the guilt:
“They could not meet each other’s glances. Their faces were solemn and pale. They looked at their hands and feet, their faces down.”
more by pausing for a while, and feeling it for ourselves? We need just a few moments of quiet contemplation of this utter emptiness of being. This is why the ending is so timely.
We need the stillness; we need to experience and empathise. No words - they have all been said. For me, the story ends at precisely the right point. It has a near-perfect poignancy.
Yet I do hesitate before rating this at 5 stars, close though it comes. The speculative ideas hit home, and yet for 1954, the science seems a bit rickety. It belongs more to an earlier time, when little was known about our “other” neighbouring planet (as opposed to Mars, the one more usually featured in Science Fiction). From the 19th century onwards, Science Fiction writers had had free rein to speculate on what lay beneath its impenetrable cloud. It was know to be a similar size to Earth, and then was discovered to have a substantial atmosphere. Since it is closer to the Sun than Earth, this led to the the idea that the planet would be warmer, and habitable by humans.
In 1930, in Olaf Stapledon’s “Last and First Men”, he envisaged Venus as being mostly ocean, and having fierce tropical storms. C.S. Lewis’s 1943 vision of Venus “Perelandra” also portrayed a planet almost covered by an ocean filled with exotic aquatic life, much as Earth had been, way in the past, in the Cambrian Period. Others imagined swamps and tropical rain forests, more in line with Earth’s Carboniferous period. And a third group of writers worked from the theory that the cloud cover was water vapour, and that Venus is a hot, dry planet, in which the surface has dust storms, above which the atmosphere holds. As Carl Sagan said in 1978:
“all classic science‐fiction devices, are all, in fact, based upon earlier misapprehensions by planetary scientists.”
Even when this story was written, there was still a lack of verified knowledge about conditions on Venus. Astronomers knew Venus was covered in clouds, and as we have seen, many thought it might be wet. Yet the idea to me of creating a little bit of home, set amidst such different and harsh environmental locations, does not quite convince. Perhaps though, it should. After all, the early British explorers ludicrously insisted on taking various paraphernalia such as full evening dress, dining sets, chandeliers, and grand pianos, on their explorations into remote areas. But to me it does feel more like the 19th century, or early 20th, rather than mid-20th century.
I also wonder whether Ray Bradbury’s contention that after hundreds (if not thousands) more years of human evolution and adaptation, in his imagined setting of Venus, bullying would still be present. In his opinion, then, is bullying others who are deemed inferior so deeply-rooted in human nature, that it perpetuates across the centuries? Social mores are changing all the time, and what we accept as “normal” varies immensely just from one century to another.
Think how we in the 21st century now regard the Imperialistic heroes of old, who imposed what they considered their superior, civilised views, on a less developed country. Now the feelings against these erstwhile highly respected men, sometimes runs so high that if their statues are not removed from public sites, they are vandalised. For these reservations, scientific and sociological, I can’t just quite nudge it into my rare 5 star rating, although it’s a close thing. I find it, as I do the best short stories, very thought-provoking, and love Ray Bradbury’s lyricism.
All Summer in a Day is not just another story about bullying. It is a poignant tale, about ignorance, integration, the difficulties of being accepted into a new culture, and accepting difference. In a sense it is a version of an immigrant story, complete with jealousy, incomprehension — and resentment or envy of a financial lifestyle which may enable Margot’s family to go back home to Earth.
It also has a notable spiritual or mystical component. The sun gives life, and sustenance, which these children have never had. The children here are pale and colourless, not just literally and physically but also emotionally. They have been deprived of a fundamental need. We have little or no back story, but should it really surprise us that children in such a hostile environment would develop in a different, more hostile way, with different concerns? Is it surprising that they have less compassion, or awareness of difference, than children living on Earth?
The lack of sun has not only leached away the colour of their skins, but also their ability to develop compassion and empathy for other people. They do not gain this until they have experienced the sun’s life-giving rays for themselves. And the sun is not only life-giving to the colonists of Venus, but also to the landscape as well. It is almost impossible to imagine the reality of such a life, especially for those of us living in a temperate zone.
We see that without ever experiencing the gentle warmth of the sun, the children find it easy to learn to be bad-tempered and spiteful, and to mock what they do not understand.
At the end of the story, not only have they learned compassion, and will have the guilt of their actions in their minds for a long while, but also they have learned a sense of loss for themselves. From accepting the constant rain as their norm, now after the brief interlude of glorious sun, when the rain begins to fall once again, they are crestfallen, sorrowfully asking their teacher, “Will it be seven more years?” It will indeed be a difficult switch now for these children, back to the constant rain. Who has lost more?
“‘It’s like a penny,’ she said once, eyes closed.
‘No it’s not!’ the children cried.
‘It’s like a fire,’ she said, ‘in the stove.’
‘You’re lying, you don’t remember!’ cried the children.“
These children are no longer the same as they were, before what proved for them to be a miraculous, life-transforming experience. They have paid a high price, but they have come to learn what we all know. In Ray Bradbury’s profound story, the sun is a positive symbol of life, and our essential humanity. Even at the beginning of the story, the children pressed together to look out the window, “like so many roses, so many weeds.” It is the sun which gives us a broader range of emotion, gives us colour, life and hope — and sometimes the promise of tomorrow. The children are now no longer weeds, but have emerged into flowers.
“It was as if, in the midst of a film concerning an avalanche, a tornado, a hurricane, a volcanic eruption, something had, first, gone wrong with the sound apparatus, thus muffling and finally cutting off all noise, all of the blasts and repercussions and thunders, and then, second, ripped the film from the projector and inserted in its place a beautiful tropical slide which did not move or tremor. The world ground to a standstill. The silence was so immense and unbelievable that you felt your ears had been stuffed or you had lost your hearing altogether.”
And oddly, perhaps serendipitously, Ray Bradbury himself died the same day as a very rare celestial event — a transit of Venus across the Sun — occurred.
July 22, 2025
It had been raining for seven years; thousands upon thousands of days compounded and filled from one end to the other with rain, with the drum and gush of water, with the sweet crystal fall of showers and the concussion of storms so heavy they were tidal waves come over the islands. A thousand forests had been crushed under the rain and grown up a thousand times to be crushed again.
All Summer in a Day ~~ Ray Bradbury
All Summer in a Day was my introduction to Bradbury at 10 years old. This haunting story has always stayed with me.
All Summer in a Day takes place on the planet Venus ~~ in a classroom full of the children who had colonized the planet years ago. Due to the weather conditions of always being cloudy and raining, the children have never seen the sun. Once every seven years, the rain stops and the sun comes out for a brief period time before turning back to nonstop rain.
Standing apart from the other children is Margot, who we discover actually remembers the sun. Unlike her classmates who are too young to remember, Margot left Earth two years later. This setup is fantastic ~~ it helps establish Margot as a child who stands alone from the rest of the children. This story is beautifully written ~~ I love Bradbury’s poetic way with words.
Bradbury shares some intimate details about Margot ~~ she's quite frail compared to the other children ~~ she looks as though she's been lost in the rain for years. Each of the children had to write a short piece about how they viewed the sun, and Margot wrote a small poem which was met with jeers. Margot never engaged in games with the other children either. She was an outcast, hated by all of them for being different. This animosity reaches its climax when Margot’s classmates decide to lock her in a closet until their teacher returns.
Without noticing Margot’s absence, the teacher lets the children play outside when the rain suddenly stops and the sun comes out. The children run around, basking in the glorious warmth of the sun. After a while, the rain returns and the sun disappears for another seven years. Returning to the classroom, one of the children suddenly remembers the poor girl they locked in the closet. Margot had stopped crying and was silent by the time she was released.
As I stated previously, I have loved this story since I was a kid. Bradbury manages to tell an extremely emotional story on the horrors of being bullied in a short, four pages. It is genius that the story ends suddenly without any of the aftermath of the cruel joke. The reader is left to imagine the devastation of poor Margot; this makes for an even stronger ending.
In this world, the sun represents happiness. This conveys these moments of happiness are few and far between. Bradbury is telling us the importance of holding on to those moments of happiness. Often, these moments are only with us for the briefest of times.
All Summer in a Day ~~ Ray Bradbury
All Summer in a Day was my introduction to Bradbury at 10 years old. This haunting story has always stayed with me.
All Summer in a Day takes place on the planet Venus ~~ in a classroom full of the children who had colonized the planet years ago. Due to the weather conditions of always being cloudy and raining, the children have never seen the sun. Once every seven years, the rain stops and the sun comes out for a brief period time before turning back to nonstop rain.
Standing apart from the other children is Margot, who we discover actually remembers the sun. Unlike her classmates who are too young to remember, Margot left Earth two years later. This setup is fantastic ~~ it helps establish Margot as a child who stands alone from the rest of the children. This story is beautifully written ~~ I love Bradbury’s poetic way with words.
Bradbury shares some intimate details about Margot ~~ she's quite frail compared to the other children ~~ she looks as though she's been lost in the rain for years. Each of the children had to write a short piece about how they viewed the sun, and Margot wrote a small poem which was met with jeers. Margot never engaged in games with the other children either. She was an outcast, hated by all of them for being different. This animosity reaches its climax when Margot’s classmates decide to lock her in a closet until their teacher returns.
Without noticing Margot’s absence, the teacher lets the children play outside when the rain suddenly stops and the sun comes out. The children run around, basking in the glorious warmth of the sun. After a while, the rain returns and the sun disappears for another seven years. Returning to the classroom, one of the children suddenly remembers the poor girl they locked in the closet. Margot had stopped crying and was silent by the time she was released.
As I stated previously, I have loved this story since I was a kid. Bradbury manages to tell an extremely emotional story on the horrors of being bullied in a short, four pages. It is genius that the story ends suddenly without any of the aftermath of the cruel joke. The reader is left to imagine the devastation of poor Margot; this makes for an even stronger ending.
In this world, the sun represents happiness. This conveys these moments of happiness are few and far between. Bradbury is telling us the importance of holding on to those moments of happiness. Often, these moments are only with us for the briefest of times.
June 30, 2024
Se eu fosse professora, sugeriria aos meus alunos que lessem este conto; estimula a imaginação e aborda assuntos muito importantes como a não aceitação pelo outro e mesmo o bullying físico, social e relacional.
Estudei no interior de Portugal num Liceu onde todos nos conhecíamos mas éramos muito receptivos a alunos que vinham de fora, nomeadamente de África. Lembro-me particularmente de um ano, alguém bater à porta durante a aula de Alemão ou Inglês; a professora mandou entrar, olhámos para uma menina meio assustada que não conhecíamos. Ela disse «Bom Dia» com sotaque brasileiro e nós ficámos encantadas, sussurrando umas com as outras o quão maravilhoso era que a nova fosse do Brasil. Fez um sucesso enorme e escolheu-me como melhor amiga. Ana Paula era esse o nome dela. Dizia patinação e não patinagem e sabia tudo sobre as novelas da Globo.
Neste conto, Ray Bradbury transporta-nos a Júpiter começando com uma belíssima descrição meteorológica, um mundo de chuva que durava sete anos, interrompido por um breve dia de sol, para logo começar um novo período pluvial. E é assim que a vida sempre fora no planeta Vénus, e é ali que se encontrava a sala de aula instalada em subterrâneos para os filhos dos homens e das mulheres que vieram para o mundo da chuva para colonizar e viver suas vidas. Essas crianças têm 9 anos e não recordam como é o sol; mas há uma nova que veio do planeta Terra há cinco anos e se lembra com saudades e necessidade do Sol e de como o Sol era e de como era o céu quando ela tinha quatro anos de idade, em Ohio.
O clima influencia as pessoas e a nova é vista pelos de Júpiter com uma certa inveja e tratada com bastante animosidade, não a ajudavam, não brincavam com ela e chamavam-lhe mentirosa quando ela dizia que o Sol era como uma moeda. Fecham-na num armário.
A chuva cessa, o sol aparece e as crianças avançam aos gritos de alegria para o Verão.
"The children lay out, laughing, on the jungle mattress, and heard it sigh and squeak under them resilient and alive. They ran among the trees, they slipped and fell, they pushed each other, they played hide-and-seek and tag, but most of all they squinted at the sun until the tears ran down their faces; they put their hands up to that yellowness and that amazing blueness and they breathed of the fresh, fresh air and listened to the silence which suspended them in a blessed sea of no sound and no motion. They looked at everything and savored everything. Then, wildly, like animals escaped from their caves, they ran and ran in shouting circles. They ran for an hour and did not stop running."
Mais sete anos. A nova queria voltar a ver o Sol mas estava fechada no armário.
Há inveja mas também um sentimento de culpa num cenário que não está preparado para ser habitado.
Estudei no interior de Portugal num Liceu onde todos nos conhecíamos mas éramos muito receptivos a alunos que vinham de fora, nomeadamente de África. Lembro-me particularmente de um ano, alguém bater à porta durante a aula de Alemão ou Inglês; a professora mandou entrar, olhámos para uma menina meio assustada que não conhecíamos. Ela disse «Bom Dia» com sotaque brasileiro e nós ficámos encantadas, sussurrando umas com as outras o quão maravilhoso era que a nova fosse do Brasil. Fez um sucesso enorme e escolheu-me como melhor amiga. Ana Paula era esse o nome dela. Dizia patinação e não patinagem e sabia tudo sobre as novelas da Globo.
Neste conto, Ray Bradbury transporta-nos a Júpiter começando com uma belíssima descrição meteorológica, um mundo de chuva que durava sete anos, interrompido por um breve dia de sol, para logo começar um novo período pluvial. E é assim que a vida sempre fora no planeta Vénus, e é ali que se encontrava a sala de aula instalada em subterrâneos para os filhos dos homens e das mulheres que vieram para o mundo da chuva para colonizar e viver suas vidas. Essas crianças têm 9 anos e não recordam como é o sol; mas há uma nova que veio do planeta Terra há cinco anos e se lembra com saudades e necessidade do Sol e de como o Sol era e de como era o céu quando ela tinha quatro anos de idade, em Ohio.
O clima influencia as pessoas e a nova é vista pelos de Júpiter com uma certa inveja e tratada com bastante animosidade, não a ajudavam, não brincavam com ela e chamavam-lhe mentirosa quando ela dizia que o Sol era como uma moeda. Fecham-na num armário.
A chuva cessa, o sol aparece e as crianças avançam aos gritos de alegria para o Verão.
"The children lay out, laughing, on the jungle mattress, and heard it sigh and squeak under them resilient and alive. They ran among the trees, they slipped and fell, they pushed each other, they played hide-and-seek and tag, but most of all they squinted at the sun until the tears ran down their faces; they put their hands up to that yellowness and that amazing blueness and they breathed of the fresh, fresh air and listened to the silence which suspended them in a blessed sea of no sound and no motion. They looked at everything and savored everything. Then, wildly, like animals escaped from their caves, they ran and ran in shouting circles. They ran for an hour and did not stop running."
Mais sete anos. A nova queria voltar a ver o Sol mas estava fechada no armário.
Há inveja mas também um sentimento de culpa num cenário que não está preparado para ser habitado.
October 18, 2021
“The children pressed to each other like so many roses, so many weeds, intermixed, peering out for a look at the hidden sun.”
One of my all-time favorite short stories by one of my favorite authors. The themes are basic, the cruel reality of bullies, the things we take for granted, and the way we feel different and disconnected from each other. The story is simple – a settlement on Venus, where it rains continuously, only stopping once every seven years, for a few hours of splendid sun-soaked paradise. A girl teased because she alone remembers the glory of a sunny day.
“It was a nest of octopi, clustering up great arms of fleshlike weed, wavering, flowering in this brief spring. It was the color of rubber and ash, this jungle, from the many years without sun.”
The title is perfect and the prose enchanting. I read it as a child and it was magical, so brief, but captivating and heartbreaking.
“The children lay out, laughing, on the jungle mattress, and heard it sigh and squeak under them, resilient and alive.”
A near perfect short story that sings despite its simplicity. Five rain-soaked, vine covered stars for me.
One of my all-time favorite short stories by one of my favorite authors. The themes are basic, the cruel reality of bullies, the things we take for granted, and the way we feel different and disconnected from each other. The story is simple – a settlement on Venus, where it rains continuously, only stopping once every seven years, for a few hours of splendid sun-soaked paradise. A girl teased because she alone remembers the glory of a sunny day.
“It was a nest of octopi, clustering up great arms of fleshlike weed, wavering, flowering in this brief spring. It was the color of rubber and ash, this jungle, from the many years without sun.”
The title is perfect and the prose enchanting. I read it as a child and it was magical, so brief, but captivating and heartbreaking.
“The children lay out, laughing, on the jungle mattress, and heard it sigh and squeak under them, resilient and alive.”
A near perfect short story that sings despite its simplicity. Five rain-soaked, vine covered stars for me.
June 5, 2019
This story will take ten minutes of your day to read, and it will give you something to think about the next 24 hours. Ray Bradbury never disappoints.
March 31, 2021
A sad and disturbing scifi story. It’s hardly a 5 minute read but will leave you stunned at its end. At the same time, I felt like the end was too abrupt. I really wanted more.
December 12, 2022
No doubt about it. Ray Bradbury’s prose is pure poetry!
Mike posted this link:
mukilteoschoolsDOTorg/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=183&dataid=731&FileName=6-All-Summer-in-a-Day-by-Ray-Bradbury.pdf
Mike posted this link:
mukilteoschoolsDOTorg/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=183&dataid=731&FileName=6-All-Summer-in-a-Day-by-Ray-Bradbury.pdf
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July 1, 2024
|| 2.0 stars ||
This tells the story of a group of children who live in a colony on Venus where the sun only comes out for an hour every seven years. All the children hate the constant rain and the lack of true warmth on their skin, but Margot is suffering most of all. She has grown sullen, ashy, quiet and sad; it’s like she has been slowly losing her life force, or perhaps even her very will to live. The other children tease her relentlessly and, worst of all, lock her in a closet when the sun is finally shining again after seven years. She misses that little hour of sunshine she so desperately needed…
All in all, I wasn’t very impressed with this story. It felt a little aimless, and although I’m sure some sort of meaning could be attributed to what I’ve just read, I didn’t really see it. To me, it seemed insubstantial and perhaps even a bit random.
This tells the story of a group of children who live in a colony on Venus where the sun only comes out for an hour every seven years. All the children hate the constant rain and the lack of true warmth on their skin, but Margot is suffering most of all. She has grown sullen, ashy, quiet and sad; it’s like she has been slowly losing her life force, or perhaps even her very will to live. The other children tease her relentlessly and, worst of all, lock her in a closet when the sun is finally shining again after seven years. She misses that little hour of sunshine she so desperately needed…
All in all, I wasn’t very impressed with this story. It felt a little aimless, and although I’m sure some sort of meaning could be attributed to what I’ve just read, I didn’t really see it. To me, it seemed insubstantial and perhaps even a bit random.
January 16, 2022
All Summer in a Day takes place on the planet Venus in a future world where "rocket men and women", as Bradbury calls them, have come to live and set up a colony. Bradbury's description of Venus and its weather patterns is entirely fictional. As the second planet from the sun in our solar system, Venus is actually very hot and dry — and has no water.
The story is about a class of students on Venus, which in this story is a world of constant rainstorms, where the Sun is visible for only one hour every seven years. One of the children, Margot, moved to Venus from Earth five years earlier, and she is the only one in her class to remember sunshine, since the Sun shone regularly on Earth. She describes the Sun as "a penny", or "like a fire in the stove", and the other children, being too young ever to have seen it themselves, do not believe her. The other students bully and ostracise her and just before the sun comes out, they lock her in a closet down a tunnel.
Bradbury wrote his story in 1959, during a period (roughly 1957-1975) when the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union was in full swing. The two countries were in competition to see who would reach the moon first and who would go the farthest to make space travel a reality.
All Summer in a Day a very melancholic short story that manages, within four pages, to encapsulate the many emotions of its characters. Margot's feelings of depression and loneliness. Her classmates' envy, and eventual understanding. Precedented by feelings of excitement, pleasure and loss.
The power of the sun over the children living on Venus is notable. They are pale and colorless, not just physically but also emotionally. The lack of the sun has not only washed away the color on their skin but also their compassion and empathy for other people.
Margot's initial exclusion from the group may speak to the difficulties of integrating immigrants into a community. Margot struggles to fit in everyday of her time on Venus, and she does not get along with the other children. They resent her for her past experiences on Earth with the sun, and they are also angry and jealous that she has the opportunity to travel back to Earth regardless of the financial costs. Though abstract, Margot represents one version of an immigrant story.
At the conclusion of the story, the children who were once hypercritical of Margot begin to arrive at an understanding of what she has been feeling since arriving in Venus. They did not understand her depression or refusal to participate in certain activities, primarily because they did not understand how Margot was so enraptured by the sun. It is not until they spend time outside, basking in the sunlight, that they begin to comprehend how much Margot sacrificed when she moved from Ohio to Venus.
This development in the story highlights a broader theme of ignorance and its presence and absence throughout the story. When the children only knew "sun lamps" and could not remember the last time the sun had shone, the daily monotony of rain was not a major concern in their lives. They were ignorant to the possible benefits of the sun. Now that they have experienced the sun and their ignorance has lifted, it will be a difficult shift back to the constant rain. As the rain begins to fall once again, they are disheartened when they ask their teacher, "Will it be seven more years?" They finally comprehend the gravity of their teacher's answer.
The story is about a class of students on Venus, which in this story is a world of constant rainstorms, where the Sun is visible for only one hour every seven years. One of the children, Margot, moved to Venus from Earth five years earlier, and she is the only one in her class to remember sunshine, since the Sun shone regularly on Earth. She describes the Sun as "a penny", or "like a fire in the stove", and the other children, being too young ever to have seen it themselves, do not believe her. The other students bully and ostracise her and just before the sun comes out, they lock her in a closet down a tunnel.
Bradbury wrote his story in 1959, during a period (roughly 1957-1975) when the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union was in full swing. The two countries were in competition to see who would reach the moon first and who would go the farthest to make space travel a reality.
All Summer in a Day a very melancholic short story that manages, within four pages, to encapsulate the many emotions of its characters. Margot's feelings of depression and loneliness. Her classmates' envy, and eventual understanding. Precedented by feelings of excitement, pleasure and loss.
The power of the sun over the children living on Venus is notable. They are pale and colorless, not just physically but also emotionally. The lack of the sun has not only washed away the color on their skin but also their compassion and empathy for other people.
Margot's initial exclusion from the group may speak to the difficulties of integrating immigrants into a community. Margot struggles to fit in everyday of her time on Venus, and she does not get along with the other children. They resent her for her past experiences on Earth with the sun, and they are also angry and jealous that she has the opportunity to travel back to Earth regardless of the financial costs. Though abstract, Margot represents one version of an immigrant story.
At the conclusion of the story, the children who were once hypercritical of Margot begin to arrive at an understanding of what she has been feeling since arriving in Venus. They did not understand her depression or refusal to participate in certain activities, primarily because they did not understand how Margot was so enraptured by the sun. It is not until they spend time outside, basking in the sunlight, that they begin to comprehend how much Margot sacrificed when she moved from Ohio to Venus.
This development in the story highlights a broader theme of ignorance and its presence and absence throughout the story. When the children only knew "sun lamps" and could not remember the last time the sun had shone, the daily monotony of rain was not a major concern in their lives. They were ignorant to the possible benefits of the sun. Now that they have experienced the sun and their ignorance has lifted, it will be a difficult shift back to the constant rain. As the rain begins to fall once again, they are disheartened when they ask their teacher, "Will it be seven more years?" They finally comprehend the gravity of their teacher's answer.
July 14, 2019
” It had been raining for seven years; thousands upon thousands of days compounded and filled from one end to the other with rain, with the drum and gush of water, with the sweet crystal fall of showers and the concussion of storms so heavy they were tidal waves come over the islands. A thousand forests had been crushed under the rain and grown up a thousand times to be crushed again. And this was the way life was forever on the planet Venus, and this was the schoolroom of the children of the rocket men and women who had come to a raining world to set up civilization and live out their lives. "It’s stopping, it’s stopping!"
Set on the planet Venus in a classroom environment, this is a very short story by Ray Bradbury that left me thinking about our changing climate. It is only four pages and is a worthwhile investment of your time!
http://staff.esuhsd.org/danielle/engl...
June 5, 2019
Ray Bradbury wrote a science fiction short story set in a school on the planet Venus which had been colonized by people from Earth. It constantly rains with the sun coming out only once every seven years. Although the story left me wanting to know more, there is more to think about because he ended it where he did. The story has themes of envy, and bullying people who are different.
To read online:
http://staff.esuhsd.org/danielle/engl...
To read online:
http://staff.esuhsd.org/danielle/engl...
August 12, 2022
5/5 stars
This is my introduction to Ray Bradbury's works, and I'm impressed. Yesterday I was scrolling through my GR feed and caught an eye on one of the reviews from Kenny. He writes outstanding reviews. You all should go read his reviews. Thanks, Kenny for bringing this book to my notice.
I'd never before read such a short novel that'd such a big impact. Can you believe, All Summer in a Day is a 4 page short story? Okay, now you must be thinking what can an author write in just 4 pages. It takes 50 pages on an average for a story plot to develop. One might wonder, how can you start and conclude a story in 4 pages.
I read All Summer in a Day yesterday evening when it had been raining since the previous night. Heavily. The book was all about heavy rain. I could very well understand and feel what the nine year old children were feeling in the story.
This story takes us to the schoolroom of the planet Venus filled with children of rocket men and women who'd come to Venus to set up a civilization. They'd been living there since. What's a strange fact about this is that here, it rains day in and day out, endlessly for the entirety of seven years. On the completion of these seven years the sun comes out but, only for AN HOUR.
I can't even imagine to be in their position. Just imagine, endless rain, and no sun - for seven long years. But, these are children, and they tend to find joy, excitement, and happiness in everything. All of these children are nine years old. So, naturally, they couldn't recall how the sun looked like when it came out for an hour and showed its face.
However, Margot was separate from the rest. She had come to this planet from Earth five years ago. So, her memories are fresh, and she remembers the sun when she was in Ohio. She knew she was different. Therefore, she kept herself away from the other mates. This was the reason why nobody liked her. They all locked her up in the closet. And, when the sun came out, they all ran out to enjoy. Forgetting about Margot.
Just as they all paused for a while, to reflect on how wonderful and joyful the experience had been, we see morality, sense of empathy, and guilt.
Some think the story is too short, ends on a cliffhanger, and leaves without a clue. This isn't just a story about bullying. It tells more than that. If you take a few moments after reading the last line of this story, you'll see a stillness. We need it to comprehend and bring out possibilities. Its about the mysteries of human nature. You see, that's why it ended the way it had too.
Review Posted: 12 August 2022.
Visit My Blog to read this and all my other reviews.
This is my introduction to Ray Bradbury's works, and I'm impressed. Yesterday I was scrolling through my GR feed and caught an eye on one of the reviews from Kenny. He writes outstanding reviews. You all should go read his reviews. Thanks, Kenny for bringing this book to my notice.
I'd never before read such a short novel that'd such a big impact. Can you believe, All Summer in a Day is a 4 page short story? Okay, now you must be thinking what can an author write in just 4 pages. It takes 50 pages on an average for a story plot to develop. One might wonder, how can you start and conclude a story in 4 pages.
I read All Summer in a Day yesterday evening when it had been raining since the previous night. Heavily. The book was all about heavy rain. I could very well understand and feel what the nine year old children were feeling in the story.
"I think the sun is a flower,
That blooms for just one hour."
This story takes us to the schoolroom of the planet Venus filled with children of rocket men and women who'd come to Venus to set up a civilization. They'd been living there since. What's a strange fact about this is that here, it rains day in and day out, endlessly for the entirety of seven years. On the completion of these seven years the sun comes out but, only for AN HOUR.
I can't even imagine to be in their position. Just imagine, endless rain, and no sun - for seven long years. But, these are children, and they tend to find joy, excitement, and happiness in everything. All of these children are nine years old. So, naturally, they couldn't recall how the sun looked like when it came out for an hour and showed its face.
However, Margot was separate from the rest. She had come to this planet from Earth five years ago. So, her memories are fresh, and she remembers the sun when she was in Ohio. She knew she was different. Therefore, she kept herself away from the other mates. This was the reason why nobody liked her. They all locked her up in the closet. And, when the sun came out, they all ran out to enjoy. Forgetting about Margot.
Just as they all paused for a while, to reflect on how wonderful and joyful the experience had been, we see morality, sense of empathy, and guilt.
"They could not meet each other’s glances. Their faces were solemn and pale. They looked at their hands and feet, their faces down."
Some think the story is too short, ends on a cliffhanger, and leaves without a clue. This isn't just a story about bullying. It tells more than that. If you take a few moments after reading the last line of this story, you'll see a stillness. We need it to comprehend and bring out possibilities. Its about the mysteries of human nature. You see, that's why it ended the way it had too.
Review Posted: 12 August 2022.
Visit My Blog to read this and all my other reviews.
June 4, 2024
Ray Bradbury loved the idea of Venus being a rainy jungle world. This short story explores what it would be like to live on a world where the rain stopped only once every 7 years...and our protagonists are only 9 years old. Bradbury has a beautiful, lyrical writing style that works so well here.
March 15, 2021
I came across this story as an audio on You Tube, and though I've read it before as part of an anthology, I gave it a listen. I read a lot of Ray Bradbury as a teen, he had a very unique style that's perhaps not for everyone, but I really like it. This story, which tells of the sometimes casual cruelty of children, is rather heartbreaking and one that stays with you, I'm glad I rediscovered it.
June 5, 2019
This was a pretty good but sad short story about a bunch of kids bullying a little girl named Margot and waiting for the rain to stop. If you like Ray Bradbury, be sure to look for the short story to read online. Enjoy!
September 29, 2025
Kids.
Margot is the nine years old new girl from Earth in school. Newly arrived to the constant and ever raining planet of Venus, she's the only one in her class with vague recollections of the sun, that incandescent disc that only appears on this planet every seven years, or more. And today, scientists predict, just might be the day.
For a 7 page SF shortie this pretty cool. Recommendable even. A bit sad, on the whole, but more than worth all the feels and time. Ah, kids can be spectacularly mean sometimes, even without really intending to. A quote from the Mortal Kombat movie comes to mind: "Treasure these moments..."
-----------------------------------------------
PERSONAL NOTE :
[1954] [7p] [Sci-Fi] [3.5] [Conditional Recommendable]
-----------------------------------------------
★★★☆☆ Fahrenheit 451. [3.5]
★★★☆☆ The Martian Chronicles.
★★★★☆ The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl.
★★★★☆ I See You Never. [3.5]
★★★★☆ All Summer in a Day. [3.5]
★★★☆☆ The Crowd.
???????? A Sound of Thunder and Other Stories.
-----------------------------------------------
Niños.
Margot es la niña nueva de la Tierra de nueve años en la escuela. Recién llegada al constante y lluvioso planeta Venus, es la única de su clase que tiene vagos recuerdos del sol, ese disco incandescente que sólo aparece en este planeta cada siete años, o más. Y hoy, predicen los científicos, podría ser justo el día.
Para un corto de CF de 7 páginas, esto fue bastante genial. Recomendable incluso. Un poco triste, dentro de todol, pero que más que vale la pena los sentimientos y el tiempo. Ah, los niños pueden ser espectacularmente malos a veces, incluso sin realmente quererlo. Me viene a la mente una cita de la película Mortal Kombat: "Atesoren estos momentos..."
-----------------------------------------------
NOTA PERSONAL :
[1954] [7p] [Ciencia Ficción] [3.5] [Recomendable Condicional]
-----------------------------------------------
Margot is the nine years old new girl from Earth in school. Newly arrived to the constant and ever raining planet of Venus, she's the only one in her class with vague recollections of the sun, that incandescent disc that only appears on this planet every seven years, or more. And today, scientists predict, just might be the day.
For a 7 page SF shortie this pretty cool. Recommendable even. A bit sad, on the whole, but more than worth all the feels and time. Ah, kids can be spectacularly mean sometimes, even without really intending to. A quote from the Mortal Kombat movie comes to mind: "Treasure these moments..."
-----------------------------------------------
PERSONAL NOTE :
[1954] [7p] [Sci-Fi] [3.5] [Conditional Recommendable]
-----------------------------------------------
★★★☆☆ Fahrenheit 451. [3.5]
★★★☆☆ The Martian Chronicles.
★★★★☆ The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl.
★★★★☆ I See You Never. [3.5]
★★★★☆ All Summer in a Day. [3.5]
★★★☆☆ The Crowd.
???????? A Sound of Thunder and Other Stories.
-----------------------------------------------
Niños.
Margot es la niña nueva de la Tierra de nueve años en la escuela. Recién llegada al constante y lluvioso planeta Venus, es la única de su clase que tiene vagos recuerdos del sol, ese disco incandescente que sólo aparece en este planeta cada siete años, o más. Y hoy, predicen los científicos, podría ser justo el día.
Para un corto de CF de 7 páginas, esto fue bastante genial. Recomendable incluso. Un poco triste, dentro de todol, pero que más que vale la pena los sentimientos y el tiempo. Ah, los niños pueden ser espectacularmente malos a veces, incluso sin realmente quererlo. Me viene a la mente una cita de la película Mortal Kombat: "Atesoren estos momentos..."
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NOTA PERSONAL :
[1954] [7p] [Ciencia Ficción] [3.5] [Recomendable Condicional]
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November 29, 2021
Them kids are dicks fr
March 13, 2022
Tragic :(
September 29, 2025
(Full review to come)
It had been raining for seven years; thousands upon thousands of days compounded and filled from one end to the other with rain, with the drum and gush of water, with the sweet crystal fall of showers and the concussion of storms so heavy they were tidal waves come over the islands. A thousand forests had been crushed under the rain and grown up a thousand times to be crushed again.
“I think the sun is a flower.
That blooms for just one hour.”- Margot
They surged about her, caught her up and bore her, protesting, and then pleading, and then crying, back into a tunnel, a room, a closet, where they slammed and locked the door. They stood looking at the door and saw it tremble from her beating and throwing herself against it. They heard her muffled cries. Then, smiling, they turned and went out and back down the tunnel, just as the teacher arrived.
“It was as if, in the midst of a film concerning an avalanche, a tornado, a hurricane, a volcanic eruption, something had, first, gone wrong with the sound apparatus, thus muffling and finally cutting off all noise, all of the blasts and repercussions and thunders, and then, second, ripped the film from the projector and inserted in its place a beautiful tropical slide which did not move or tremor. The world ground to a standstill. The silence was so immense and unbelievable that you felt your ears had been stuffed or you had lost your hearing altogether. The children put their hands to their ears. They stood apart. The door slid back and the smell of the silent, waiting world came in to them.
The sun came out.
It was the color of flaming bronze and it was very large. And the sky around it was a blazing blue tile color. And the jungle burned with sunlight as the children, released from their spell, rushed out, yelling into the springtime.
At last... the sun came out only to be gone again after 2 hours... And because of the bullies, Margot could not even see the sun.
Ray Bradbury tells us the importance of holding on to those moments of happiness. Often, these moments are only with us for the briefest of times.
It had been raining for seven years; thousands upon thousands of days compounded and filled from one end to the other with rain, with the drum and gush of water, with the sweet crystal fall of showers and the concussion of storms so heavy they were tidal waves come over the islands. A thousand forests had been crushed under the rain and grown up a thousand times to be crushed again.
“I think the sun is a flower.
That blooms for just one hour.”- Margot
They surged about her, caught her up and bore her, protesting, and then pleading, and then crying, back into a tunnel, a room, a closet, where they slammed and locked the door. They stood looking at the door and saw it tremble from her beating and throwing herself against it. They heard her muffled cries. Then, smiling, they turned and went out and back down the tunnel, just as the teacher arrived.
“It was as if, in the midst of a film concerning an avalanche, a tornado, a hurricane, a volcanic eruption, something had, first, gone wrong with the sound apparatus, thus muffling and finally cutting off all noise, all of the blasts and repercussions and thunders, and then, second, ripped the film from the projector and inserted in its place a beautiful tropical slide which did not move or tremor. The world ground to a standstill. The silence was so immense and unbelievable that you felt your ears had been stuffed or you had lost your hearing altogether. The children put their hands to their ears. They stood apart. The door slid back and the smell of the silent, waiting world came in to them.
The sun came out.
It was the color of flaming bronze and it was very large. And the sky around it was a blazing blue tile color. And the jungle burned with sunlight as the children, released from their spell, rushed out, yelling into the springtime.
At last... the sun came out only to be gone again after 2 hours... And because of the bullies, Margot could not even see the sun.
Ray Bradbury tells us the importance of holding on to those moments of happiness. Often, these moments are only with us for the briefest of times.
October 25, 2022
Such an impactful four-page story.
June 24, 2025
idgaf if this story is FOUR pages long. I have been thinking about this book for literally A DECADE AND A HALF. I WISH I WAS KIDDINGGGG. I read this book in like fourth grade? Maybe fifth grade????? And it impacted me so violently that sometimes I just randomly remember that they LOCKED HER IN A CLOSET AND SHE DIDN'T GET TO SEE THE SUN and literally have to sit down. They locked her. In a closet. And now she has to wait another SEVEN years to see the sun. Oh I'm angry just typing this.
PLUS THIS IS WRITTEN BY RAY BRADBURY??????? I DIDN'T KNOW. Ray you've been infecting my brain for literally all my life. and i hate you. KIDS!!!!!!!! AHHHHH.
I just love science fiction stories that are less than ten pages long that affect you so completely that you can't help but remember them for the rest of your life.
PLUS THIS IS WRITTEN BY RAY BRADBURY??????? I DIDN'T KNOW. Ray you've been infecting my brain for literally all my life. and i hate you. KIDS!!!!!!!! AHHHHH.
I just love science fiction stories that are less than ten pages long that affect you so completely that you can't help but remember them for the rest of your life.
July 6, 2022
A heartbreaking sci-fi which leaves you wanting more. 💔
July 20, 2022
Monsoons have been at its worst. For the first time I haven't seen the sun in three weeks and reading this short story hit very hard.
November 11, 2021
Well worth taking a couple minutes to read.
April 28, 2019
I read this story in one of my middle school education classes in college. One thing is very clear about this short story from Ray Bradbury: it is extremely impactful. I don’t know how, but Bradbury takes hold of you the entire story and rocks you at the end. It’s tragic, but amazing at the same time. If you’re looking for an ending that ties everything together in a nice bow: this is not the place to look. We have read this in a middle school classroom I helped in and the kids went nuts. It left some of them speechless. How do you react to a story like this? Sometimes there are simply no words. It’s 100% an amazing choice for a young-adult audience because it as just the right amount of complexity. The story itself is easy to follow, but the overall arching theme is deep.
It’s also important to note that this story is packed full of figurative language- especially similes and metaphors. It can pair well with any unit on identifying that stuff. If I were to do anything with this short story around the topic of perspective, I would ask students to explore why this text is told from the view point it is. Why don’t we get 1st person point of view from Margot? Or what about her classmates? What are they thinking this whole time? I think there is an argument to be made on the effectiveness of an omniscient narrator. How does it detract or add to the impact at the end? I would also ask students to look at the ending of the story. Is it satisfactory? If you could re-write it or change it, how would you? Stories are made to be examined in multiple ways to find many different meanings. I would love to see if middle schoolers like this piece or if they were scarred by it.
It’s also important to note that this story is packed full of figurative language- especially similes and metaphors. It can pair well with any unit on identifying that stuff. If I were to do anything with this short story around the topic of perspective, I would ask students to explore why this text is told from the view point it is. Why don’t we get 1st person point of view from Margot? Or what about her classmates? What are they thinking this whole time? I think there is an argument to be made on the effectiveness of an omniscient narrator. How does it detract or add to the impact at the end? I would also ask students to look at the ending of the story. Is it satisfactory? If you could re-write it or change it, how would you? Stories are made to be examined in multiple ways to find many different meanings. I would love to see if middle schoolers like this piece or if they were scarred by it.
August 13, 2021
This is heartbreaking....what was done to Margot was cruel. Very cruel.
August 25, 2022
I really like Bradbury’s way of addressing societal issues and social constructs using sci fi
December 3, 2022
I wish Margot died.
Read
December 17, 2024The real reason she cried was because her name was really pronounced “Mar-GOT” and not “Mar-Go”
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 5, 2019
Meagre remains for our progeny
Rating - 4.5/5
First published here -
http://tiredlife.com/2019/08/05/meagre-remains-for-our-progeny/
Bradbury takes you on a ride to a world where civilization witnesses years of torrential rain, where grey is the new green and humans stay put underground so as to not crushed by the crystals of perpetual rain. This is Venus, and perhaps Earth in a few years.
This thoughtful and dystopian story is of a group of underground schoolchildren on Venus, who await to experience a bit of sunshine that trickles for a few minutes after every seven years of deluge and rain. The children are young and pale, they have only imagined sunshine, they await anticipate with bated breath the feel of sunshine, to take in its every sparkle, to run amok ...
"I think the sun is a flower, that blooms for just one hour.
All Summer in a day is as contemplative as it is chilling. It demands your attention and makes you sit up straight to brace for the life to come.
Imagine such a life. And prepare for it, because we will arrive there in a few years.
Rating - 4.5/5
First published here -
http://tiredlife.com/2019/08/05/meagre-remains-for-our-progeny/
Bradbury takes you on a ride to a world where civilization witnesses years of torrential rain, where grey is the new green and humans stay put underground so as to not crushed by the crystals of perpetual rain. This is Venus, and perhaps Earth in a few years.
This thoughtful and dystopian story is of a group of underground schoolchildren on Venus, who await to experience a bit of sunshine that trickles for a few minutes after every seven years of deluge and rain. The children are young and pale, they have only imagined sunshine, they await anticipate with bated breath the feel of sunshine, to take in its every sparkle, to run amok ...
"I think the sun is a flower, that blooms for just one hour.
All Summer in a day is as contemplative as it is chilling. It demands your attention and makes you sit up straight to brace for the life to come.
Imagine such a life. And prepare for it, because we will arrive there in a few years.
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