Friday, May 4, 2012

Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury

It was a quiet morning, the town covered over with darkness and at ease in bed. Summer gathered in the weather, the wind had the proper touch, the breathing of the world was long and warm and slow. 


A description of the book from Amazon: Ray Bradbury's moving recollection of a vanished golden era remains one of his most enchanting novels. Dandelion Wine stands out in the Bradbury literary canon as the author's most deeply personal work, a semi-autobiographical recollection of a magical small-town summer in 1928.
Twelve-year-old Douglas Spaulding knows Green Town, Illinois, is as vast and deep as the whole wide world that lies beyond the city limits. It is a pair of brand-new tennis shoes, the first harvest of dandelions for Grandfather's renowned intoxicant, the distant clang of the trolley's bell on a hazy afternoon. It is yesteryear and tomorrow blended into an unforgettable always. But as young Douglas is about to discover, summer can be more than the repetition of established rituals whose mystical power holds time at bay. It can be a best friend moving away, a human time machine who can transport you back to the Civil War, or a sideshow automaton able to glimpse the bittersweet future.
Come and savor Ray Bradbury's priceless distillation of all that is eternal about boyhood and summer.

Yet Dandelion Wine has a scary side to it as well. In my mind, it's not just a story about one boy's summer, there's always a sense of something just being kept at bay, or maybe it's just Douglas's own uncertainties about his life. I loved the cover of the edition I read and the wonderful title (doesn't dandelion wine just sound great when you say it?) The book had great descriptions of summer in a in idyllic countryside setting. I love books set during the summer; it's such a great time and so much can happen. As Dandelion Wine progresses, Douglas learns more and more about himself and the world around him. Dandelion Wine also chronicles the lives of other people in the town during that summer. 


Read Dandelion Wine:
  • if you like Ray Bradbury
  • if you like books set in the summer
  • if you like books set in the countryside
239 pages.

 
Very Good! I would recommend this book!

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