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Dandelion Wine

Dandelion Wine

List Price: $7.50
Your Price: $6.75
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Summer Reading
Review: I was assigned by my highschool to read Dandelion Wine as a summer reading book. Going into my freshman year I was only used to the books that they had us read in Grade School and Middle School. I was used to books with plot and a good story line good for doing a project on or taking a test. I have to take a test on Dandelion wine, and feel completly unprepared for it for the lack of story line in Dandelion Wine made the book especially hard to follow. As a reader I am disappointed. I thought the book was frankly a waist of my time, I would encourage my highschool to replace this book with another book for the list but I beleive that it is just not my place. Sorry to import dicipointing news.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Favorite
Review: I disclose, up front, that Ray Bradbury is my lifelong favorite author. Just out of curiosity, I was reading through the customer reviews of "Dandelion Wine". To find the word "average" stopped me in my tracks. I also as taken aback by the idea that it was actually more a collection of short stories than a complete novel, not carrying the reader from beginning to end. Not only do I find the story wonderous, but the writing poetry. I re-read this book regularly. Throughout my life I have given this book as a gift to the people most important to me.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Vintage Bradbury Fantasy Is My Favorite
Review: DANDELION WINE is first and foremost the story of a 12 year old boy discovering that he is alive. I was lucky enough to read this gorgeous, perfect novel, wrapped in a library's dandelion yellow hardcover, the summer of my 12th year, in the small town of New Haven, Indiana, probably wearing my own pair of Red Ball Jets or Keds, lying in my living room as usual, curled up in a chair with the screen door open to let in the blustery summer wind and sun, with the lush green Indiana grass blowing in waves just outside.

I understood what Bradbury was saying at age 12, an incredible thing in itself, since the themes here are fairly grown-up. Essentially, this book is about a boy flooded with the sudden realization of his own "aliveness", and never has a child's experience of innocent living been so perfectly, passionately illustrated. Douglas Spaulding lying in the grass, or feeling the keen pleasure and pain of carrying heavy laden buckets of self-picked berries out of the woods while the handles crease the insides of his hands. Douglas Spaulding discovering the wonder of a Number Two pencil, and the joy of rising early in the morning to watch his town come to life with the sunrise. Douglas Spaulding discovering that nothing makes a boy fly weightless through his summer vacation better than slipping his feet into the cool, cloudwrapped heaven of a new pair of tennis shoes.

I found this book, at age 12 and several times since, to be an experience ranking with the most important books about human life that I have ever read. Bradbury sees so much, and conveys the experiences so clearly that one knows what Douglas and Ray know by the end. This is a book about passion and joy and being fully alive from moment to moment. It is a sonnet to and affirmation of childhood and innocence of such persuasive power that it has become a key volume of my core library. I don't expect everyone to have such a trascendent experience in the reading, and not everyone is fortunate enough to read this book at as perfect a moment as I did. But it is undeniable in its power and equal to the greatest work Ray Bradbury has produced, in my opinion. I was fortunate enough to meet him and thank him for it while at college. But this book has meant more to me than I could tell him.

Give this to a boy you care about, or read it to evoke, soothe and elevate the child in you. It is pure poetry, Bradbury at the height of his powers, written with genius, on the vital topic of the nature of life. I can only say Douglas Spaulding has never left me. You may find him equally provocative.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Beautiful
Review: Although Bradbury is known mostly as a science fiction writer, this book is not really SF at all. It's pure poetry. The essence of summer poured between two covers - the way that dandelion wine is the essence of summer bottled up for the cold dark times of year when you need it most. Bradbury's prose is so beautiful that I had to stop and read most paragraphs twice so that I could savor every detail. This is a book that oozes warmth and happiness and yes, a little bit of sorrow, but that's what makes it real.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Kind and Gentle Heart -- Ray Bradbury
Review: I have read Dandelion Wine many times since I first picked up a copy over thirty years ago. Even now, I inhale the words of the book, like the air from S. J. Jonas' green bottles and I know that Ray Bradbury lived these stories. He was nurtured by the natural beauty of Green Town (Waukegan, Illinois), lulled to sleep by the sound of the trains heading in and out of Chicago, mesmerized by the Lighthouse in Lake Michigan, and entrapped in the Amazonian jungle of the steamy and mysterious ravine where he penned most of "The Illustrated Man" and many of his earlier works. Ray Bradbury paints with words that sing and teach. His unique and gifted way of owning the moment is illusive and marvelous. He is very much like the songbird that gives away a melody to the wind. One needs only an open eye and loving heart to appreciate the Master Storyteller as he delivers his craft. A "must read" for all ages. Poetry, Magic, and Love -- This is Ray Bradbury (a dear friend and penpal for over 20 years)

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not much of a novel as it is a collection of short stories
Review: Ray Bradbury is one of the world's finest short story writers, ranking with E.A. Poe and Franz Kafka. However, his attempts at novels, many times, wind up as nothing more than a series of loosely connected short stories (for example, "The Martian Chronicles" and "The Illustrated Man," which were both made up of already-printed short stories and purported to be novels) that leave the reader wanting.

"Dandelion Wine" follows that same structure, although it isn't as loosely put together as "The Martian Chronicles." Individually, the stories of "Dandelion Wine" are Bradbury at his best--magical, mythical, poetic, and damn entertaining. But as a complete novel, it loses its power and fails to capture the reader's attention from start to finish. This disjointed structure reads more like an anthology than novel.

There seems to be no engine driving this novel. However, Bradbury's powerful writing ability is capable of taking the reader on a wonderful diversion.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A good book for all ages
Review: I think that it is sad that younger readers do not like this book. I am 18 now and I read this book for the first time when I was 12. I have read it many times since. I think that the book is enjoyable by people of all ages. Young readers can relate to Douglas' experiences, as can older readers. It is an all-around classic that, I believe, should be reccommended and read by all.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: his words are a mix of poetry and paintings
Review: Ray Bradbury's book Dandelion Wine is a beautiful memory of a childhood. I am 15 years old, and I can really relate to Douglas Spaudling and his fear of change and death. Even though there are a few dark spots in the book, the overall point is about living, really living, about everyone's desperate will to be alive. I love the chapter about the new tennis shoes. Bradbury works his magic once again there, and I promise you that you'll never think of shoes the same way again. I will go back and read this book many times over, crying and laughing through this unforgetable summer of 1928.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: imagination
Review: Dandelion WIne is certainly a rarity. It gave me such an imaginative feeling. It reminded me so much of my childhood. This book is so filled with imagination and paints such a perfect picture of childhood. Buy it. Read it. You'll thank me later. -Jared

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Perfect in its' way
Review: It is so rare that a book can actually capture the essence of a season. Dandelion Wine does exactly that. It captures the warmth, the excitement, the sadness, the strangeness of Summer. It never wavers from the normal even when it flies into the fantastic. Ray Bradbury writes so beautifully and some of the stories are hard to grasp, but it is well worth the time and money. One of his best and that says a lot.


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