Preparing to Read

All Summer in a Day

by Ray Bradbury
LITERARY SKILLS FOCUS: SETTING
Setting is an important part of a story. The setting is the location and time
in which the story takes place. The plot includes all of the events in the
story. Sometimes the setting of a story greatly affects the plot, as in the
story “All Summer in a Day.”

Describe Setting Written below is an example of the plot of a story.

Describe the setting you imagine for such a story.
Plot: A boy from a rural town in the South dreams of moving out of his
hometown to become an actor.
Setting:

READING SKILLS FOCUS: SEQUENCING

The events of the plot take place in a particular order, or sequence. As you
read “All Summer in a Day,” keep track of the sequence of the main events
in a chart like this one. Add as many boxes for events as you need. Include a
few key details for each event.

Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.

The children are watching for the rain to stop.

Reading
Standard 3.3
Analyze the
influence of
setting on the
problem and its
resolution.

2 All Summer in a Day

 Vocabulary Development

All Summer in a Day

SELECTION VOCABULARY
frail (FRAYL) adj.: not very strong; easily broken.
The girl was small and frail.
vital (VY TUHL) adj.: necessary for life; very important.
It was vital that everyone see the sun.
consequence (KON SUH KWEHNS) n.: importance; result or effect.
The students realized the consequence of their actions.
surged (SURJD) v.: moved forward, as if in a wave.
The children surged toward the door, eager to escape.
savored (SAY VUHRD) v.: delighted in.
The children savored the chance to play outside.

WORD STUDY
DIRECTIONS: Try to think of an antonym for each vocabulary word below.
An antonym has the opposite meaning of the original word. For example,
dull is an antonym of sharp. Use a dictionary if you need help.

Vocabulary Word Antonym

Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.

consequence 1.

savored 2.

vital 3.

surged 4.

frail 5.

All Summer in a Day 3

 All Summer in a Day
by Ray Bradbury

BACKGROUND
Author Ray Bradbury is known for his imaginative settings. He has
written hundreds of stories, set everywhere from Earth to Mars. In
“All Summer in a Day,” Bradbury uses a real planet—Venus—for the
setting. However, he also creates an entirely fictional climate for
Venus, one in which it only stops raining for two hours every seven
years. It is this setting that sets up the plot of the story for readers.

“Ready.”
“Ready.”
A VOCABULARY
“Now?”
Word Study
Underline the simile on this
“Soon.”
page. Similes are figures of “Do the scientists really
speech that compare two
things that are not otherwise know? Will it happen today,
alike. Similes usually include will it?”
the word like or as.
“Look, look; see for

Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.

yourself!”
10 The children pressed to
each other like so many roses,
so many weeds, intermixed,
peering out for a look at the
hidden sun.
© Digital Art/Corbis
It rained.
It had been raining for seven years; thousands upon
thousands of days compounded and filled from one end to the
other with rain, with the drum and gush of water, with the sweet
crystal fall of showers and the concussion1 of storms so heavy they
20 were tidal waves come over the islands. A A thousand forests had

1. concussion (KUHN KUH SHUHN): violent shaking or shock.

“All Summer in a Day” by Ray Bradbury. Copyright © 1954 and renewed © 1982 by Ray Brad-
bury. Reproduced by permission of Don Congdon Associates, Inc.

4 All Summer in a Day

 been crushed under the rain and grown up a thousand times to
be crushed again. And this was the way life was forever on the B LITERARY FOCUS
planet Venus, and this was the schoolroom of the children of the What does this paragraph
rocket men and women who had come to a raining world to set tell you about the setting
of the story?
up civilization and live out their lives. B
“It’s stopping, it’s stopping!”
“Yes, yes!”
Margot stood apart from them, from these children who
could never remember a time when there wasn’t rain and rain
30 and rain. They were all nine years old, and if there had been a
day, seven years ago, when the sun came out for an hour and C VOCABULARY
showed its face to the stunned world, they could not recall.
Academic Vocabulary
Sometimes, at night, she heard them stir, in remembrance, and Achieve means “succeed
she knew they were dreaming and remembering gold or a yellow in getting a good result.”
In this paragraph, the
crayon or a coin large enough to buy the world with. She knew author makes a comparison
they thought they remembered a warmness, like a blushing in between Margot and the
other children. How does he
the face, in the body, in the arms and legs and trembling hands. achieve this?
But then they always awoke to the tatting drum, the endless
shaking down of clear bead necklaces upon the roof, the walk,
40 the gardens, the forests, and their dreams were gone. All day
yesterday they had read in class about the sun. About how like
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.

a lemon it was, and how hot. And they had written small stories
or essays or poems about it. C
I think the sun is a flower
That blooms for just one hour.
That was Margot’s poem, read in a quiet voice in the still
D READING FOCUS
classroom while the rain was falling outside.
In lines 33–50, the author
“Aw, you didn’t write that!” protested one of the boys. gives us details out of
“I did,” said Margot. “I did.” sequence. What new
information do we learn in
50 “William!” said the teacher. these lines?
But that was yesterday. D Now the rain was slackening2,
and the children were crushed in the great thick windows.
“Where’s teacher?”
“She’ll be back.”
“She’d better hurry; we’ll miss it!”
2. slackening (SLA KUH NIHNG): lessening; slowing.

All Summer in a Day 5

A READ AND DISCUSS

Comprehension
What are we learning about
how the other children view
Margot?

B LANGUAGE COACH

© Anthony Redpath/Corbis
Recall that the words
characters speak in a story
are called dialogue. What
does the dialogue in lines
65 and 67 tell you about
William?

They turned on themselves like a feverish wheel, all tumbling

spokes. A
Margot stood alone. She was a very frail girl who looked as
if she had been lost in the rain for years and the rain had washed
60 out the blue from her eyes and the red from her mouth and the
yellow from her hair. She was an old photograph dusted from an
album, whitened away, and if she spoke at all her voice would be
a ghost. Now she stood, separate, staring at the rain and the loud
wet world beyond the huge glass.

Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.

“What’re you looking at?” said William.
Margot said nothing.
“Speak when you’re spoken to.” He gave her a shove. But she
did not move; rather she let herself be moved only by him and
nothing else. B
70 They edged away from her; they would not look at her. She felt
them go away. And this was because she would play no games with
them in the echoing tunnels of the underground city. If they tagged
her and ran, she stood blinking after them and did not follow.
When the class sang songs about happiness and life and games,
her lips barely moved. Only when they sang about the sun and the
summer did her lips move as she watched the drenched windows.
And then, of course, the biggest crime of all was that
she had come here only five years ago from Earth, and she

6 All Summer in a Day

 remembered the sun and the way the sun was and the sky was
80 when she was four in Ohio. And they, they had been on Venus C VOCABULARY
all their lives, and they had been only two years old when last the Selection Vocabulary
sun came out and had long since forgotten the color and heat of Look at the word vital. In
Latin, words with the roots
it and the way it really was. But Margot remembered. vit- and viv- relate to life.
“It’s like a penny,” she said once, eyes closed. What other words can you
think of with these roots? Do
“No, it’s not!” the children cried. they share similar meanings?
“It’s like a fire,” she said, “in the stove.”
“You’re lying; you don’t remember!” cried the children.
But she remembered and stood quietly apart from all of them
and watched the patterning windows. And once, a month ago, she
90 had refused to shower in the school shower rooms, had clutched
her hands to her ears and over her head, screaming the water
mustn’t touch her head. So after that, dimly, dimly, she sensed it,
she was different, and they knew her difference and kept away. D READ AND DISCUSS
There was talk that her father and mother were taking her
Comprehension
back to Earth next year; it seemed vital to her that they do so, What is the author
though it would mean the loss of thousands of dollars to her explaining to us here?

family. C And so, the children hated her for all these reasons of
big and little consequence. They hated her pale snow face, her
waiting silence, her thinness, and her possible future. D
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.

100 “Get away!” The boy gave her another push. “What’re you
waiting for?”
Then, for the first time, she turned and looked at him. And
what she was waiting for was in her eyes.
“Well, don’t wait around here!” cried the boy savagely. “You
won’t see nothing!”
Her lips moved.
“Nothing!” he cried. “It was all a joke, wasn’t it?” He turned
to the other children. “Nothing’s happening today. Is it?”
They all blinked at him and then, understanding, laughed
110 and shook their heads. “Nothing, nothing!”
“Oh, but,” Margot whispered, her eyes helpless. “But this is
the day, the scientists predict, they say, they know, the sun . . .”
“All a joke!” said the boy, and seized her roughly. “Hey
everyone, let’s put her in a closet before teacher comes!”

All Summer in a Day 7

 “No,” said Margot, falling back.
A READ AND DISCUSS They surged about her, caught her up and bore her,
Comprehension protesting, and then pleading, and then crying, back into a
How do the children seem tunnel, a room, a closet, where they slammed and locked the
to feel about what they’ve
done to Margot? door. They stood looking at the door and saw it tremble from her
120 beating and throwing herself against it. They heard her muffled
B LITERARY FOCUS cries. Then, smiling, they turned and went out and back down
How has the setting of the the tunnel, just as the teacher arrived. A
story changed? How has the “Ready, children?” She glanced at her watch.
change in setting affected
the plot? “Yes!” said everyone.
“Are we all here?”
“Yes!”
The rain slackened still more.
They crowded to the huge door.
The rain stopped.
130 It was as if, in the midst of a film concerning an avalanche, a
tornado, a hurricane, a volcanic eruption, something had, first, gone
wrong with the sound apparatus, thus muffling and finally cutting
off all noise, all of the blasts and repercussions and thunders, and
then, second, ripped the film from the projector and inserted in its
place a peaceful tropical slide which did not move or tremor. The

Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.

world ground to a standstill. The silence was so immense and unbe-
lievable that you felt your ears had been stuffed or you had lost your
hearing altogether. The children put their hands to their ears.
They stood apart. The door slid back and the smell of the
140 silent, waiting world came in to them.
The sun came out.
It was the color of flaming bronze and it was very large. And
the sky around it was a blazing blue tile color. And the jungle
burned with sunlight as the children, released from their spell,
rushed out, yelling, into the springtime. B
“Now, don’t go too far,” called the teacher after them. “You’ve
only two hours, you know. You wouldn’t want to get caught out!”
But they were running and turning their faces up to the sky
and feeling the sun on their cheeks like a warm iron; they were
150 taking off their jackets and letting the sun burn their arms.

8 All Summer in a Day

 “Oh, it’s better than the sun lamps, isn’t it?”
“Much, much better!” C C LANGUAGE COACH
They stopped running and stood in the great jungle Look at the dialogue here.
that covered Venus, that grew and never stopped growing, Who is speaking in lines 151
and 152?
tumultuously,3 even as you watched it. It was a nest of octopuses,
clustering up great arms of fleshlike weed, wavering, flowering in
this brief spring. It was the color of rubber and ash, this jungle,
from the many years without sun. It was the color of stones and
white cheeses and ink, and it was the color of the moon. D READ AND DISCUSS

160 The children lay out, laughing, on the jungle mattress and Comprehension
What has happened here?
heard it sigh and squeak under them, resilient 4 and alive. They
ran among the trees, they slipped and fell, they pushed each other,
they played hide-and-seek and tag, but most of all they squinted
at the sun until tears ran down their faces; they put their hands up
to that yellowness and that amazing blueness and they breathed of
the fresh, fresh air and listened and listened to the silence which
suspended them in a blessed sea of no sound and no motion. They
looked at everything and savored everything. Then, wildly, like
animals escaped from their caves, they ran and ran in shouting
170 circles. They ran for an hour and did not stop running. D
And then—
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.

In the midst of their running, one of the girls wailed.

Everyone stopped.
The girl, standing in the open, held out her hand.
“Oh, look, look,” she said, trembling.
They came slowly to look at her opened palm.
In the center of it, cupped and huge, was a single raindrop.
She began to cry, looking at it.
They glanced quietly at the sky.
180 “Oh. Oh.”
A few cold drops fell on their noses and their cheeks and
their mouths. The sun faded behind a stir of mist. A wind blew
cool around them. They turned and started to walk back toward

3. tumultuously (TOO MUHL CHOO UHS LEE): wildly; violently.

4. resilient (RIH ZIHL YUHNT): springy, quick to recover.

All Summer in a Day 9

 the underground house, their hands at their sides, their smiles
A VOCABULARY vanishing away.
Word Study A boom of thunder startled them, and like leaves before a
How do you think the new hurricane, they tumbled upon each other and ran. Lightning
children now feel about
struck ten miles away, five miles away, a mile, a half-mile. The
locking Margot in the closet?
Considering this, write a sky darkened into midnight in a flash.
definition for solemn. Use
a dictionary to check your
190 They stood in the doorway of the underground for a
answer. moment until it was raining hard. Then they closed the door
and heard the gigantic sound of the rain falling in tons and
avalanches, everywhere and forever.
“Will it be seven more years?”
“Yes. Seven.”
Then one of them gave a little cry.
“Margot!”
“What?”
“She’s still in the closet where we locked her.”
200 “Margot.”
They stood as if someone had driven them, like so many
stakes, into the floor. They looked at each other and then looked
B READ AND DISCUSS away. They glanced out at the world that was raining now and
Comprehension raining and raining steadily. They could not meet each other’s

Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.

What does this say about the glances. Their faces were solemn and pale. They looked at their
students?
hands and feet, their faces down. A
“Margot.”
One of the girls said, “Well . . . ?”
No one moved.
210 “Go on,” whispered the girl.
They walked slowly down the hall in the sound of cold rain.
They turned through the doorway to the room in the sound of
the storm and thunder, lightning on their faces, blue and terrible.
They walked over to the closet door slowly and stood by it.
Behind the closet door was only silence.
They unlocked the door, even more slowly, and let Margot
out. B

10 All Summer in a Day

 Applying Your Skills

All Summer in a Day

VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT
DIRECTIONS: Write words from the Word Box in the correct blanks. Not all words will
be used.

LdgY7dm The short story “All Summer in a Day” is set on the planet Venus,

surged where readers are told the sun comes out for only two hours every seven
consequence years. Margot feels that seeing and feeling the sun is
frail (1) . While living on Venus, she becomes very
savored
(2) and quiet. She longs for Earth, where she
vital
(3) the daily sunlight.

LITERARY SKILLS FOCUS: SETTING

DIRECTIONS: Answer these questions about how the setting affects the plot
and the characters in “All Summer in a Day.”
1. How does the constant rain affect the forests on Venus?

2. Margot has memories of the sun from her days on Earth. How does this
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.

affect her relationship with the other children?

3. How do the children feel when the rain starts again after briefly stopping?

READING SKILLS FOCUS: SEQUENCING

DIRECTIONS: Put these events from the story in the correct sequence. Write
the number of each event in the correct order on the blank line below.
1. After it begins raining again, the children head back inside.
2. The children lock Margot in the closet.
3. The children look out the window, waiting for the rain to stop. Reading
Standard 3.3
4. The children let Margot out of the closet. Analyze the
influence of
5. The children play outside while the sun is out. setting on the
problem and its
resolution.

All Summer in a Day 11