Dandelion Wine

A mix of coming of age in the first half of the twentieth century, and Bradbury’s peculiar brand of very earthly oddness and sci-fi strangeness, Dandelion Wine is full of all sorts of magic. It reminds you of what it is to be a small human again, when everything seems possible, and aliens and monsters are as likely (and as important) as long summer days spent outside, barefoot and sunburnt and a little feral. Even when we don’t recognise the details of the childhood described, we remember the feeling, and it reawakens a sense of wonder that’s incredibly precious.

In 1972, Jerry Jenkins, the high-school band director, turned me on to science fiction. I tore through the sci-fi shelf of the school library like a plague of locusts, frustrating Mrs. Sullivan and devouring everything in reach, until I stumbled upon Ray Bradbury and camped out. This was not just rockets and ray guns. It was music on the page.

Fahrenheit 451 terrified me. The Martian Chronicles melted my head. But Dandelion Wine won my heart. It was not sci-fi. Not even close. The story follows 12-year-old Douglas Spaulding as he navigates the summer of 1928 in Green Town, Illinois,… show more.

Although most known as an imaginative science fiction writer, Ray Bradbury uses his imagination to take you to a simple little town to live the fun, homespun life of the child in all of us. When Tom was in the attic looking down on his neighborhood, I was there with him. When he would write in his journal about the “first times” of doing things, I not only was with him for the first time walking barefoot in the grass in the spring, but I still try to notice all my first times. This book totally transports the reader to… show more.

This is a lovely bildungsroman tale about Bradbury as a young boy (Douglas Spaulding) growing up in the Midwest. It is infused with his sense of magic in the world and the wonder of everyday existence while learning that life is not all gentle and innocent. Bradbury dares to look in the shadows and talk about death. Doug’s grandmother dies at home surrounded by her family. Later, the aging Colonel asks an old friend in Mexico City to cradle the phone on the window sill and draws his last breath listening to the sounds of the street below. Bradbury entangles… show more.

Dandelion Wine, the tale of a single Illinois summer in the life of young Douglas Spaulding, is one of the most glorious and magical books ever written. Reading it is an experience that stills the Naysaying Voices that constantly seek to tell us that we're small and helpless, ordinary and afraid—and opens our hearts and minds to a deeper reality: one where life is sacred, creativity is an expression of pure delight and the universe is viewed with eyes of innocence and wonder.

This is my favorite book! It is all book genres depending on the chapter. It’s coming-of-age, it’s philosophical, it’s even a scary story sometimes! It’s about growing up and dying and really living in between. If it were a feeling, this book would be putting your bare feet onto soft, sun-warmed grass. The book was written as an ode to Bradbury’s childhood, which was in Illinois in the late 1920s; but, as with all the best summer novels and films, it evokes a timeless feeling. I re-read this book often and find I can just open it up to any… show more.