Book

The Illustrated Man

Published: 1951
Genre: SciFi/Fantasy
Pages: 186
Words: 70575
URL: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24830.The_Illustrated_Man?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_21

Reading measures

Accelerated Reader level: 4.4
AR interest level: UG — upper grades, 9–12
Lexile: 680L
Suggested reading age: ages 14–18
Ambleside year: Year 11 onwards · ages 16–19

An Ambleside year is a year of the Ambleside Online programme, not a reader's age. Year 0 is its first year, and a book used over several years shows the span. The ages beside it are that band offered two grades up and none down, which is how we offer a band; they are a placement, not a reading measure.

That The Illustrated Man has remained in print since being published in 1951 is fair testimony to the universal appeal of Ray Bradbury's work. Only his second collection (the first was Dark Carnival, later reworked into The October Country), it is a marvelous, if mostly dark, quilt of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. In an ingenious framework to open and close the book, Bradbury presents himself as a nameless narrator who meets the Illustrated Man--a wanderer whose entire body is a living canvas of exotic tattoos. What's even more remarkable, and increasingly disturbing, is that the illustrations are themselves magically alive, and each proceeds to unfold its own story, such as "The Veldt," wherein rowdy children take a game of virtual reality way over the edge. Or "Kaleidoscope," a heartbreaking portrait of stranded astronauts about to reenter our atmosphere--without the benefit of a spaceship. Or "Zero Hour," in which invading aliens have discovered a most logical ally--our own children. Even though most were written in the 1940s and 1950s, these 18 classic stories will be just as chillingly effective 50 years from now. --Stanley Wiater

ISBN

ISBN-13: 9780553230963
ISBN-10: 0553230964

The Illustrated Man

Reading measures

ISBN

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