The Veldt, by Ray Bradbury, is about a future family who depends on technology way too much. In the beginning, their nursery, a virtual reality room, has something wrong with it. Lydia the mother feels as if the nursery is just too real, like things are coming to life. Lydia suggests shutting off the whole nursery for a few days and taking a vacation. The children have changed the nursery into an African veldtland, and their father George Hadley can't change it even though it's supposed to change according to your thoughts. George and Lydia start hearing mysterious screams coming from the nursery, and get even more worried. The kids, Peter and Wendy will not admit that the nursery is Africa. Peter tells his father that he should not even consider shutting the house off for a few days, and his father says that he will have no threats from his son. George and David McClean (the the children's psychologist) go to investigate the nursery, and find one of Lydia's scarfs on the ground bloody and chewed on. They then shut the house off and the children throw a fit. Lydia convinces George to turn the nursery back on for just one more minute. The children call their parents down to the nursery and they lock it from the outside. The lions were back and they pounced on the parents, and they suddenly realized why the screams had sounded familiar.
One main theme that I found in this story is to not spoil your children or there could be bad consequences. One example that I have is when George and Lydia thought about locking the nursery for a few days. "' You know how difficult Peter is about that. When I punished him a month ago by locking the nursery for even a few hours-the tantrum he threw! And Wendy too. They live for the nursery'" (12). My second example is when the parents are talking about the nursery malfunctioning and George is thinking about how much the nursery cost, it had cost half as much as the rest of the house. "'But nothing is to good for our children,' George had said" (9). My third and last example is how the children are not listening to their parents. "' We've given the children everything they ever wanted. Is this our reward-secrecy, disobedience?'" (18). These are three example of why you should not spoil your children.
I would definitely recommend this story to other 7th graders. Ray Bradbury envisions many pieces of awesome technology, some of which have now been invented. Like automatic lights, which turn on when they sense your presence then turn off when you leave. This story is very well written and is very exciting. These are some of the reasons why I would recommend this story to other 7th graders.
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