The Playground: A Short Story

Ray Bradbury

Jan. 2002 · Rosetta Books

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From the iconic science fiction author of Fahrenheit 451, a chilling dystopian short story that became a classic episode of TV’s Ray Bradbury Theater.
 
The Playground, first published in the hardcover edition of Bradbury’s legendary work Fahrenheit 451, tells the story of Charles Underhill, a widower who must protect his young son, Jim, from the horrors of the playground. Passing the playground on their daily walk brings Charles back the anguish of his own childhood—a nightmare of vulnerability and suffering. He will do anything to spare his sensitive son from the same torment.
 
Charles’s sister, Carol, who has moved in to help raise the young boy, feels differently. The playground, she believes, is preparation for life, and Jim will be more equipped to deal with the rigor and obligation of adult existence by facing it.
 
Paralyzed by his own fear and his sister’s invocation of reason, Charles learns of a way that Jim can be spared the playground. But it will come at a great cost . . . perhaps more than he can pay.

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Ray Bradbury (1920 – 2012), one of the most celebrated writers of the 20th Century, was a prolific author of hundreds of short stories and more than three dozen books, as well as numerous poems, essays, operas, plays, teleplays, and screenplays. His iconic works include Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. He wrote the screen play for John Huston's classic film adaptation of Moby Dick, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. He adapted sixty-five of his stories for television's The Ray Bradbury Theater, and won an Emmy for his teleplay of The Halloween Tree. He was the recipient of the 2000 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the 2004 National Medal of Arts, and the 2007 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation, among many honors.