Several of Science Fiction writer Ray Bradbury‘s best-known stories feature rain as a major background element. The climate in this story, set on the planet Venus, features almost constant rain. The only break comes every seven years, when there are two hours of sunshine. The children of the Earth space travel families on the planet are all looking forward to playing outside during the short break. Only one of them has ever seen the sun, and she is having great trouble dealing with the constant rain. But when the sun finally does come out, she is nowhere to be seen.
Original Text / PDF (1,936 words)
Video Versions
Unfortunately, both of these videos suffer in that Bradbury’s jungle that grew and never stopped growing, tumultuously, even as you watched it… and was a nest of octopuses, clustering up great arms of flesh-like weed, wavering, flowering in this brief spring is turned into a garden-like setting with gently rolling meadows of flowers.
2014 Short Film: This relatively modern version of the story is quite true to the original… so much so that my then twelve year old daughter had tears in her eyes at the end. One thing that stands out for me is the “creepy” looks on the faces of some of the children. With class-mates like these, I can see why Margot wants to go back to Earth. Watch and enjoy!
1982 Short Film: This television adaption of the story was produced by American educational broadcaster PBS as part of its WonderWorks children’s series. From comments on the Internet, the video is fondly remembered by many school children who experienced it in the early 1980’s. However, the ending is softened whereby the children are so sorry for locking Margot in the closet that they offer her the flowers they collected outside. This detracts somewhat from Bradbury’s message about bullying. Watch and enjoy!
I have used this story in my science classes — photosynthesis.
Therefore, any video MUST have a white to beige forest… no green at all for any plants unless grown with a sunlamp.
Thank you for the fascinating comment, Katheryn. It’s a detail that few readers would think about, but I just checked the story again and was surprised to see that Bradbury also avoided the word “green” in describing the forest.
WORST
I like the 2014 version as true to text and decent film making. I like the second version for the students to criticize. Thanks for providing them!
You are most welcome, and thanks for taking the time to comment.
This movie sucks. I hate it and if i could guess the budget of this movie. i would think about 10 dollars max. I looks like a homeless guy wrote this terrible movie.
I’m not sure which of the two videos you are talking about, although I suspect it is the second one. We don’t include videos for people to like, but rather to help people who are interested to practice their English listening and compare against the story. Part of the problem with this one is the poor video quality, which makes me think it could have been recorded off an old VHS video cassette.
Totally agree
i know i did not even understand
Very interested in All Summer In A Day
This story shows a lot of different ideas. The themes of deprivation, appreciation, jealousy, bullying, and the consequences of acting without thinking are all in play. I liked that the story stops when it does. We have to consider how terrible the kids feel for their choice to bully. Many of us may understand the regret they feel, and make a different choice.
Thank you for the thoughtful comment, Bret. I also like the fact that the story stops when it does. This leaves it open to the reader to decide how the children might feel about what they did to Margot. As I mentioned in the literary analysis, they may well regret their choice to bully and change their ways in the future. Alternatively, their reactions after realizing that Margot was still in the closet may simply reflect guilt, knowing that they are likely to be punished, as opposed to sorrow for what they have done.
i hate it
I suspect that many people react as you do (and my daughter did when she watched the 2014 video) and are disturbed by Bradbury’s message in this story. However, the reality is that bullying exists in the world and we need to be aware of and if safe try to do something about it when we see it happening. Had any of the children spoken against William and told him to leave Margot alone, the ending of the story could have been very different.