Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
There’s nothing in the living world like books on water cures, deaths-of-a-thousand-slices, or pouring white-hot lava off castle walls on drolls and mountebanks.
How I just love Ray Bradbury’s writing style. After I read any of his stories or novels, the world becomes a more interesting place. Falling leaves become tears that the trees cry; rain is the cleansing power of the universe; books are portals to new worlds. Ray Bradbury takes the ordinary world and electrifies it until it shimmers with a glow that was always waiting to shine.
Something Wicked This Way Comes is a horror story. It’s scary. Not the kind of scary that makes you check under the bed, but the kind of scary that makes you wonder if you’re in the grip of evil yourself. Bradbury shows us the dark side of ourselves in this traditional story of good versus evil.
In the month of October, a carnival comes to a small town in Illinois–which doesn’t sound too frightening (of course, that’s what people used to say about clowns). But this carnival brings evil with it–the evil of granting your deepest desire. This is what elevates Something Wicked This Way Comes to being more than just a horror story. It’s a horror story that gives its reader something to contemplate about his or her own life. What is it that I want more than anything in the world? What am I willing to do to get it?
It’s a terrific story told by a master storyteller. Perfect for a dark and stormy night…
[This review was originally written for my students at Mr. Senger’s Junior High Reading Lists, a website for my 8th graders.]
