The Martian Chronicles is a collection of short stories. It’s old. Copy write 1950. Back then little was known of Mars short of what could be seen in a telescope. The Martian satellites and rovers are half a century in the future. The short stories are various, some tell of live Martians on Mars, dealing with Terran explorers. Some tell of Terran explorer's trials and tribulations getting to Mars, settling on Mars, whatever. I encountered the Martian Chronicles in grade school and I loved it. I read it repeatedly on my own time. Still have a paperback. It broadened my mind a lot.
The other book Bradbury is known for, at least in science fiction circles, is Fahrenheit 451. This is a simple tale of future Nazi like bad guys who burn books they don’t like. I didn’t read it until much later and it never lived up to the promise of the Martian Chronicles.
For some reason school teachers liked Fahrenheit 451 far better than they liked Martian Chronicles. Probably because the book burning had been going on the Germany less than 20 years before and teachers understood it and detested it. Martian Chronicles had a lot of stories that required serious thinking to get your head around them. It’s a pity; I think Martian Chronicles would have developed a love of reading in a lot of children. Reading Fahrenheit 451 was just work, not much fun.
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