A classic originally published in 1957. Set in summer of 1928 in the fictitious town of Green Town, Illinois, based upon Ray Bradbury's childhood town of Waukegan, Illinois.

This is the story of a young boy remembering a part of his boyhood during one particular summer. A summer where he first began noticing changes in people, his hometown, his life. He also documented all "the firsts" of that summer. The first dandelion picking for the dandelion wine announced summer's arrival. The sound of the first lawnmower...the summer festival...the friend who moved away...the serial killer who struck again...the deaths of two of the oldest "time travelers" in town. One thing we know for sure is Douglas Spaulding didn't like change...and I can fully relate.

On pages 219-220, it states: "Some people turn sad awfully young,... No special reason it seems but they seem almost to be born that way. They bruise easier, tire faster, cry quicker, remember longer, and as I say, get sadder younger than anyone else in the world." I know, for I'm one of them.

What's interesting is the fact that for this novel, the author, Ray Bradbury, woke each morning and wrote down words that conjured up bits and pieces of his own childhood, then began writing out his memories. For example, he would write down the word apple tree. Then start journaling what he could remember about the apple trees in his grandparents yard. This is how the novel developed, so it's also a peek into his real life in the early years.

The problem I had reading this book was the way it was written. It was so over fluffed with synonyms and symbolism of things that I often got lost in his intended meaning. The naive, carefree lives of the young boys running around a small town doing what boys did back in the 1920's was nearly completely lost on me because of his style of writing. ( )

I read Dandelion Wine 30+ years ago and it swiftly became one of my all-time favorite books. However, there's actually very little I remember of the book. My main memory is the scene where the main character's grandfather is indignant when someone tries to convince him to get a lawn where dandelions won't grow, and thus lose the main ingredient in the titular beverage (By the way, since this book is set in 1928, does making dandelion wine violate the Volstead Act?).

This book is a more personal work for Ray Bradbury, based on his childhood memories of summers in his hometown of Waukegan, Illinois (which he calls "Green Town"). Bradbury admits in the introduction that Waukegan is an unattractive, industrial city but for a child it was full of wonders, something the jibes with my own experience of growing up in a mundane Connecticut suburb. The main characters of the book are 12-year-old Douglas, his younger brother Tom, and their friend Charlie. But it's not a novel as much as it is an interconnected collection of short stories, several of which don't involve the children at all.

The book is not science fiction or horror as it typical of Bradbury's work, but contains aspects of these things. Douglas finds magic in the feeling of being alive in the summer and an elderly neighbor is considered a "time machine" because of the stories he can tell. While rooted in childhood, this book is very much an adult's perspective on ideas of mortality. An elderly woman is convinced by children who believe she was never young to let go of her memories, while Douglas' great grandmother predicts the hour of her death. There's also the horror of a serial killer known as The Lonely One stalking the town.

Bradbury's work is filled with nostalgia and poetic language, but it is not divorced from cold reality. It embraces the magic of every day life while not shying away from the fact that one day everyone will die. Through all the change, there are always things that will remain the same. ( )

I am floored. So much width and depth crammed into these short stories spread over the course of a boyhood summer. The suspense of the Lonely One's "chase", when the "witch" pulled out the voodoo doll, the "time machine", the dark magic of the ravine, and the countless other moments of mastery. Bradbury is making it hard to pick a favorite novel. The imagery of pulling a bottle of golden, dandelion wine off the cellar shelf will help warm me in winters to come. ( )

Dandelion Wine describes one summer in 1928 through the lens of 12-year old Douglas and magnified by his little brother, Tom. The chapters are vignettes each describing an aspect of that summer, but clearly enhanced by the vivid imagination of a child.

I'm of two minds regarding this book. The prose is absolutely breathtaking. Honestly, every sense is touched while reading, and it just completely evokes summer. The language is truly special.

While I appreciated Bradbury's ability to capture childlike wonder, I am so not a fan of magical realism, and this book had quite a bit of MR elements. This issue is more a personal quirk of mine, and I did think the way he did it was not completely unbelievable in the sense I could chalk it up to a young person's imagination.

Finally, if you go into this book expecting much in the way of plot, you will be disappointed. It's reads more like a series of interconnected stories. There isn't a strong sense of resolution in either the book nor in many of the vignettes, but that's not unusual in a short story collection, so if you go into the book with that mindset, I think you are more likely to embrace it.

Dandelion Wine has some insightful messaging about joy, death, and family but there's no real hint of social ills at all, which strikes me as strange given the time period. It's a slice of small town life, very artfully rendered. I wavered between 3 and 4 stars because the writing was so beautiful, but ultimately I wasn't as interested in these characters as I needed to be to round up. ( )

Poetic fantasy stories. ( )