Dandelion Wine

This morning I finished one of the most AMAZING books I have ever read, Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. You'd think with it being a Ray Bradbury it would be some sort of science fiction horror story, but it really wasn't anything like that at all. Of course, when I got it, I had no idea what to expect. I'd gone to the library looking for something good to read, and naturally, all the usual classics and AP novels I could think of were checked out. Out of desperation I searched for Ray Bradbury's books, and Dandelion Wine was the only one checked in, so I decided to go for it, even though I wasn't sure I'd like it very much.

I'm pretty sure it was fate that brought the two of us together, the book and I. I know you should never judge a book by its cover, but still, the cover wasn't the most attractive thing I'd ever seen. Nonetheless, I thought I'd give it a shot, and WOW what a shot it's been. This book is MAGICAL. Not like "Harry Potter" magic or something like that, but it's just...enchanting.

It begins with twelve-year-old Douglas Spaulding, his ten-year-old brother Tom, and their father on an outing in the forest near their home in Green Town, Illinois, in the summer of 1928. This is where Douglas first realizes that he is alive. Not that he'd ever really thought he was dead, but he had just at that moment discovered that he was alive. This discovery gives way to a whole summer full of savory adventures, beginning and ending with the bottling of the dandelion wine. For every day of the summer, he, Tom, and Grandpa make one ketchup bottle full of dandelion wine. These were for the long winter, when you missed the feeling of summer, you would go down to the cellar and open a bottle and remember a summer day gone by.

Doug and Tom begin the summer planning to do everything they normally do, plus some new things. They write everything that happens to them and the new discoveries they make down in a nickel tablet of Doug's. They've taken everything for granted in the past, and now, this summer, things change. For example, people die or move away, which is just as bad or worse than dying, the trolley stops running, Aunt Rose changes Grandma's cooking habits, and Grandpa's grass is almost taken out and replaced. (Without the proper background, these situations all probably sound a little strange. Sorry.) One thing that remains the same though is the presence of the Lonely One, a man who slinks into town on dark nights to kill women. There is a very intense chapter concerning him, in which I pretty much screamed at the end.

The whole book is basically the author's memories of past summers and the events that have happened to him therein, all crammed into one summer of Doug and Tom's. Bradbury has the power to capture all the magic of a summer day in a single passage, and just makes everything so familiar and palpable. I marked a ton of quotes from it, and I may just have to post some of them. It was particularly great to read during the summer, because it teaches to never take anything for granted, especially the time you have. Thus far, my summer has been nothing compared to the Spauldings', but I still want to try and make it memorable, especially since I don't have a bottle of dandelion wine for every day to remember it by. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone. It's magical, it's beautifully written, and I loved it. :)