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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 show more 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. show lessTags
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Jannes Interconnected stories abour childhood and endless summers. Bradbury is more fantastical, while Jansson leans more to the realistic and understated, but both books runs over with wonderful and lyrical prose, and both captures a sense of childhood and summer in a way that is very rare.
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Member Reviews
How anyone could give this book a bad review is BEYOND ME but; I get it. Not everyone wants to drown in nostalgia and beautiful prose.... me on the other hand? I LIVE for this sort of thing. I jump at the chance to dive back into my youthful days, before the woes of excessive bills and being chained to my office cubicle and becoming an ordinary 9-5er; devoid of any dreams, where all of my days blend into one long murmer of relentless monotony.
If I could bottle the scent of summer, it would be dandelion wine.
There are so many hidden gems in this book that you can apply towards your life here.
This was a few beautiful short stories, (with such amazing memorable characters) that all blended into one delightful flowing story of 2 brothers show more experiencing a summer.
I will never forget their scatterbrained grandmother who was a kitchen wizard and produced magic at every meal, their grandfather who knew just how to appreciate the small little pleasures in life, the imagination of a child who will never allow me to view a pair of sneakers the same again, all of it combined gave me one collective nostalgic sigh.
The Happiness Machine is now one of my favorite gems of all times. The idea of a happiness machine is very symbolic to the activity of reading fiction.
This book DID in fact gave me so much happiness, but eventually I have to get back to my pile of papers......
-sigh-
I will always miss you Bradbury! THANK YOU once again. show less
If I could bottle the scent of summer, it would be dandelion wine.
There are so many hidden gems in this book that you can apply towards your life here.
This was a few beautiful short stories, (with such amazing memorable characters) that all blended into one delightful flowing story of 2 brothers show more experiencing a summer.
I will never forget their scatterbrained grandmother who was a kitchen wizard and produced magic at every meal, their grandfather who knew just how to appreciate the small little pleasures in life, the imagination of a child who will never allow me to view a pair of sneakers the same again, all of it combined gave me one collective nostalgic sigh.
The Happiness Machine is now one of my favorite gems of all times. The idea of a happiness machine is very symbolic to the activity of reading fiction.
This book DID in fact gave me so much happiness, but eventually I have to get back to my pile of papers......
-sigh-
I will always miss you Bradbury! THANK YOU once again. show less
Genetic Enchanter
That's what Bradbury called himself in his Introduction, a "genetic enchanter," and Dandelion Wine is "the boy-hid-in-the-man playing in the fields of the Lord."
From the first story, I was under his spell. Bradbury is an exemplar story-teller (think Dickens and Twain, not Joyce and Faulkner). He poured it on as thickly as he liked in this cycle of stories about being a 12 year old boy the summer 1928 in his Illinois hometown. Page after page I whispered, "Oh, yes. Yes! I remember that," although my girlhood in New Mexico summers was 40 years after his.
The details are different of course but he captured the universal sensations. Moments of unbearable joy, epiphanies of sadness, a kid's magical thinking, the terror of show more some boogie man or another, and the wonderment and mystery that seemed to underly everything—as seen by the child-in-the-adult looking back when all childhood summers have condensed into a stream of one continuous long summer, a summer of being alive.
Maybe you should wait until you are at least 40 to read this. (I'm 64.) Let those memories distill into a vintage piquancy to sip along as you read. You know, that intoxicating flavor of nostalgia that gets sweeter as time goes by. In the meantime, read Fahrenheit 451 or The Martian Chronicles or Something Wicked This Way Comes because Bradbury is quite simply a damn good story-teller and no need to deny yourself that pleasure until you are old.
Now I'm on the hunt for a Bradbury I haven't yet read. The Illustrated Man next I think. show less
That's what Bradbury called himself in his Introduction, a "genetic enchanter," and Dandelion Wine is "the boy-hid-in-the-man playing in the fields of the Lord."
From the first story, I was under his spell. Bradbury is an exemplar story-teller (think Dickens and Twain, not Joyce and Faulkner). He poured it on as thickly as he liked in this cycle of stories about being a 12 year old boy the summer 1928 in his Illinois hometown. Page after page I whispered, "Oh, yes. Yes! I remember that," although my girlhood in New Mexico summers was 40 years after his.
The details are different of course but he captured the universal sensations. Moments of unbearable joy, epiphanies of sadness, a kid's magical thinking, the terror of show more some boogie man or another, and the wonderment and mystery that seemed to underly everything—as seen by the child-in-the-adult looking back when all childhood summers have condensed into a stream of one continuous long summer, a summer of being alive.
Maybe you should wait until you are at least 40 to read this. (I'm 64.) Let those memories distill into a vintage piquancy to sip along as you read. You know, that intoxicating flavor of nostalgia that gets sweeter as time goes by. In the meantime, read Fahrenheit 451 or The Martian Chronicles or Something Wicked This Way Comes because Bradbury is quite simply a damn good story-teller and no need to deny yourself that pleasure until you are old.
Now I'm on the hunt for a Bradbury I haven't yet read. The Illustrated Man next I think. show less
Waukegan There I Come From: "Waukegan There I come from" wrote Ray Bradbury, and this book, Dandelion Wine, describes my hometown. I read this book first when I was 17 years old on an airplane to Sweden, leaving Waukegan forever. I reread it when I was 26 and moving to Seattle, and again at 39. Each time I read this novel, magical realism more than science fiction, I find something enriching, something true to the time of life in which I found myself. And yet, this book talked to me of my own childhood, my specific hometown with its ravine, its murderers, Genessee street, the stifling hot summers, people that I knew, playing statues in my parents' front lawn and wanting to hold on to a picture of my best friend in her statue pose show more forever, which I captured on camera (being lucky enough to be born in an era where a ten-year-old could have a cheap camera). And then, seven years later, to read Ray via his alter-ego Douglas describing his wish to hold on to his best friend during a game of statues and I could relive that summer night, decades later than his, but so much the same. This book is pure poetry, one of the best novels I've ever read in the forty years I've been reading. show less
About weeds in the lawn and gardening : ..they bend you over and turn you away from all the people and the town for a little while and sweat you and get you down where you remember you got a nose again. And when you're all to yourself that way, you're really yourself for a little while; you get to thinking things through, alone. Gardening is the handiest excuse for being a philosopher. Nobody guesses, nobody accuses, nobody knows, but there you are. Plato in the peonies, Socrates force growing his own hemlock. " p 51
Dandelion Wine is an episodic story about a remarkable 14 year old and his slightly younger brother's idyllic summer in 1928.
Each summer their grandparents made dandelion wine to be doled in small glasses during the cold show more and illnesses of bleak Januaries when times were hard; a bit of summer memories to take you through the darker times. That's exactly what these stories feel like to me - glowing bright bits read during stressful summer of 2020.
Hooray for how that first pair of tennis shoes could make you feel that summer had truly arrived; or the knowledge that you are really, truly alive, or that your elders could be time machines to the past.
Several of the later chapters, though, took rather darker turns. It made me think that that although I would love to share some of the earlier chapters with a child, some of the later chapters, such as the one about women being strangled in the town would be tough going and need to be kept for a slightly older audience.
This one is definitely a keeper. show less
Dandelion Wine is an episodic story about a remarkable 14 year old and his slightly younger brother's idyllic summer in 1928.
Each summer their grandparents made dandelion wine to be doled in small glasses during the cold show more and illnesses of bleak Januaries when times were hard; a bit of summer memories to take you through the darker times. That's exactly what these stories feel like to me - glowing bright bits read during stressful summer of 2020.
Hooray for how that first pair of tennis shoes could make you feel that summer had truly arrived; or the knowledge that you are really, truly alive, or that your elders could be time machines to the past.
Several of the later chapters, though, took rather darker turns. It made me think that that although I would love to share some of the earlier chapters with a child, some of the later chapters, such as the one about women being strangled in the town would be tough going and need to be kept for a slightly older audience.
This one is definitely a keeper. show less
Magical. If the word 'magical' didn't exist, we would have to invent it in order to properly describe Ray Bradbury's "Dandelion Wine". The premise is absurdly simple: one summer in a small Midwestern town during the late 1920's. On the surface it doesn't look like a lot to hang a novel on, but Bradbury puts so much heart, soul and, yes, love into his words that I defy anyone to call it an empty book. Bradbury has always written superbly for children, and slipping his characters into his own nostalgic childhood succeeds on virtually every level.
Most of the chapters are self-contained little story segments. In fact, I had come across portions of this book in short story collections, and had no idea that they were smaller parts of a larger show more work. Yet "Dandelion Wine" is much more than just a collection of stories. The children and adults alike grow and change as the summer days burn and then fade. Just like a real season, some events are disconnected from the rest and can involve seldom seen people, while other proceedings are intrinsically linked to their peers.
The book itself is fairly difficult to sum up; every definition that I've tried coming up with has omitted several major elements. Of course, any summary that tried to include everything would be far too long and would contain none of the magic of the text. Children discover some fundamental and universal truths for the first time.
Adults deal with their own fears and their own nightmares. And, of course, there are the usual wonderful collection of Bradbury eccentrics and strangers. Children are filled with awe and recognizably childlike without being annoying or unrealistic. There really are too many great little moments in this book to go into huge amounts of detail. To mention a handful of great things is to omit the other wonderful moments. Just like most perfect summers, the book isn't great because of one or two gigantic epics, but because of small quiet little days.
Beautiful little book. 4 stars. show less
Most of the chapters are self-contained little story segments. In fact, I had come across portions of this book in short story collections, and had no idea that they were smaller parts of a larger show more work. Yet "Dandelion Wine" is much more than just a collection of stories. The children and adults alike grow and change as the summer days burn and then fade. Just like a real season, some events are disconnected from the rest and can involve seldom seen people, while other proceedings are intrinsically linked to their peers.
The book itself is fairly difficult to sum up; every definition that I've tried coming up with has omitted several major elements. Of course, any summary that tried to include everything would be far too long and would contain none of the magic of the text. Children discover some fundamental and universal truths for the first time.
Adults deal with their own fears and their own nightmares. And, of course, there are the usual wonderful collection of Bradbury eccentrics and strangers. Children are filled with awe and recognizably childlike without being annoying or unrealistic. There really are too many great little moments in this book to go into huge amounts of detail. To mention a handful of great things is to omit the other wonderful moments. Just like most perfect summers, the book isn't great because of one or two gigantic epics, but because of small quiet little days.
Beautiful little book. 4 stars. show less
I have never tasted dandelion wine, but I feel like I can conjure it to my lips. The aroma from the old, cloudy bottle is redolent of nostalgia; a cloying scent of freshly cut grass and your nan's culinary magic undercut by a sweaty, fetid, almost smegmacious, stench that coats the sinuses. The first sip effervescing on the tongue; an explosion of ecstacy, as if standing in Wonka's factory as the bombs fall. Every sweet and sour taste is there, so perfectly overwhelming in their apotheosis. Now the nose is running, mouth watering, tastebuds fizzing. The palette, now roused by this wondrous sensation, yawns and stretches, before rolling over and awaiting the flavours to bathe it. Boiling treacle reaches out with tentacles of nostalgia, show more strangling the palette, coating it in choking oil, even as the bittersweet bit in its mouth keeps it distracted. Your mouth is held open, a foie gras funnel forced down your gullet as the sickly, gritty substance is pushed inside. You choke and splutter, while faceless family members and your imaginary friends comfort you, whispering the exact exquisite words you always needed to hear to be complete. You feel calm for a moment, enjoying the embrace and savouring the sugary alcoholic bite, and what it's doing to you. The spigot is turns all the way, filling you with gloop, until you explode and lay among the tatters of everything else that wasn't in the recipe. show less
From the intro, where Bradbury telegraphs the joy he felt in tapping into his childhood memories for this novel:
This recalls to me the feeling summoned by such boyish recollecting imaginings as the movies Stand By Me and River's Edge. Here is a sample of the young boy's outsized enthusiasm for the summer months conjured here:
Touched by real, 1928, and prior history we are told of the Chung Ling Soo death from the bullet catch trick. (In May 1980, Carl Skenes performed a bullet catch for That's Incredible!. But I recall the grazed lip and cooler demeanor of a much less orchestrated TV demonstration others seem to recall without finding online evidence.)
Like a Disney story where lethal evil lurks in the background during the steps to adulthood, this work features The Lonely One, inspired by Orvel Weyant. This real-life criminal (B&E man, not killer) who terrorized Ray Bradbury's hometown when he was six years old.
He is one of the cast of characters in the vignettes and parable-like tales here. They include fantastic vision such as The Happiness Machine.
This is a great read. show less
show more
Along the way, I found myself in the basement working the wine-press for my father, or on the front porch Independence night helping my Uncle Bion load and fire his homemade brass cannon.
Thus I fell into surprise. No one told me to surprise myself, I might add. I came on the old and best ways of writing through ignorance and experiment and was startled when truths leaped out of bushes like quail before gunshot. I blundered into creativity as blindly as any child learning to walk and see. I learned to let my senses and my Past tell me all that was somehow true.
So, I turned myself into a boy running to bring a dipper of clear
rainwater out of that barrel by the side of the house. And, of course, the more water you dip out the more flows in. The flow has never ceased. Once I learned to keep going back and back again to those times, I had plenty of memories and sense impressions to play with, not work with, no, play with. Dandelion Wine is nothing if it is not the boy-hid-in-the-man playing in the fields of the Lord on the green grass of other Augusts in the midst of starting to grow up, grow old, and sense darkness waiting under the trees to seed the blood.
This recalls to me the feeling summoned by such boyish recollecting imaginings as the movies Stand By Me and River's Edge. Here is a sample of the young boy's outsized enthusiasm for the summer months conjured here:
"Dad," said Douglas, "it's hard to explain."
Somehow the people who made tennis shoes knew what boys needed and wanted. They put marshmallows and coiled springs in the soles and they wove the rest out of grasses bleached and fired in the wilderness. Somewhere deep in the soft loam of the shoes the thin hard sinews of the buck deer were hidden. The people that made the shoes must have watched a lot of winds blow the trees and a lot of rivers going down to the lakes. Whatever it was, it was in the shoes, and it was summer.
Douglas tried to get all this in words.
Touched by real, 1928, and prior history we are told of the Chung Ling Soo death from the bullet catch trick. (In May 1980, Carl Skenes performed a bullet catch for That's Incredible!. But I recall the grazed lip and cooler demeanor of a much less orchestrated TV demonstration others seem to recall without finding online evidence.)
Like a Disney story where lethal evil lurks in the background during the steps to adulthood, this work features The Lonely One, inspired by Orvel Weyant. This real-life criminal (B&E man, not killer) who terrorized Ray Bradbury's hometown when he was six years old.
He is one of the cast of characters in the vignettes and parable-like tales here. They include fantastic vision such as The Happiness Machine.
This is a great read. show less
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RAY BRADBURY - IN MEMORIAM GROUP READ OF DANDELION WINE in 75 Books Challenge for 2012 (July 2012)
Author Information
940+ Works 168,488 Members
Ray Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Illinois on August 22, 1920. At the age of fifteen, he started submitting short stories to national magazines. During his lifetime, he wrote more than 600 stories, poems, essays, plays, films, television plays, radio, music, and comic books. His books include The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, The show more Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and Bradbury Speaks. He won numerous awards for his works including a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 1977, the 2000 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the 2004 National Medal of Arts, and the 2007 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation. He wrote the screen play for John Huston's classic film adaptation of Moby Dick, and was nominated for an Academy Award. He adapted 65 of his stories for television's The Ray Bradbury Theater, and won an Emmy for his teleplay of The Halloween Tree. The film The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit was written by Ray Bradbury and was based on his story The Magic White Suit. He was the idea consultant and wrote the basic scenario for the United States pavilion at the 1964 World's Fair, as well as being an imagineer for Walt Disney Enterprises, where he designed the Spaceship Earth exhibition at Walt Disney World's Epcot Center. He died after a long illness on June 5, 2012 at the age of 91. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Dandelion Wine
- Original title
- Dandelion Wine
- Original publication date
- 1957-09
- People/Characters
- Douglas Spaulding; Tom Spaulding
- Important places
- Green Town, Illinois, USA (fictional place)
- Dedication
- For Walter I. Bradbury
neither uncle nor cousin
but most decidedly
editor and friend. - First words
- It was a quiet morning, the town covered over with darkness and at ease in bed.
- Quotations
- "Gardening is the handiest excuse for being a philosopher. Nobody guesses, nobody accuses, nobody knows, but there you are, Plato in the peonies....Dig in the earth, delve in the soul. Spring those mower blades and walk in th... (show all)e spray of the Fountain of Youth."
"Dawn, then, was a time where things changed element for element. Air ran like hot spring water howhere, with no sound. The lake was a quantity of steam very still and deep over valleys of fish and sand held baking under its ... (show all)serene vaports. Tar was poured licorise in the streets...."
Douglas's mouth was slightly open and from his lips and from the thin vents of his nostrils, gently there rose a scent of cool night and cool water and cool white snow and cool green moss, and cool moonlight on silver pebbles... (show all) lying at the bottom of a quiet river and cool clear water at the bottom of a small white stone well.
.It was like holding their heads down for a brief moment to the purse of an apple-scented fountain flowing cool up into the air and washing their faces....They could not move for a long time." - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)And, sleeping, put an end to Summer, 1928.
- Original language
- American English
- Canonical DDC/MDS
- 813.54
- Canonical LCC
- PS3503.R167
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