Dandelion Wine

Rating:
Summary: This book is full of metaphor of life
Review: Each episode implies something significant. It is not only about old good days or innocent age. I noticed that after I read it the 2nd time. Since then I have repeatedly read that book. It may seem somewhat boring or slow to someone who is looking for an excitement since this book is categolized in science fiction because of the author. But read it twice, and you will find the real enjoyment, awe, and thankfulness to your life between lines.This is a kind of bible for my life

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Read
Review: As a long time fan of Mr. Bradbury's works, I found Dandelion Wine to be both refreshing, and nostalgic. A work that lets you see the world of the late 1920's through the eyes of a child

Rating:
Summary: The snap of an invisible spider web on a summer morning...
Review: Bradbury's magical evocation of the summer of 1928 that was not but should have been, Dandelion Wine is the story of a young man coming to grips with mortality. The prose borders on poetry; the emotions range from sweet sentiment to gripping horror. Dandelion Wine has been criticized for "prettying up" an ugly coal town; Bradbury has said that he saw the coal -- he just saw it as dehydrated dinosaurs to which one should add a little dandelion wine, stir, and wait for the magic.

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Summary: Read it on the last day of summer
Review: It was a ritual of mine to pick up this book and read it on the last day of summer before the start of classes. It captures the spirit of the summer and reminds the reader of the privlages of youth

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Summary: Oh to be young again.
Review: This book magically captures the excitement and wonder of being young. It takes us into everyday life and gives us a fresh look at what makes it magic. You can smell the grass and the dust, and feel the heat. Every time I read these stories I want to be there with Bradbury in the Illinois of his childhood and see it with his eyes. Luckily, all I have to do is read them again.

Rating:
Summary: Dandelion WIne
Review: I have read this story numerous times over the years, and found each read to be as enjoyable as the last. Although the main character is a twelve-year-old boy, this is definitely NOT a book that most twelve-year-olds will appreciate. Few people that young have acquired all the perceptions of life that are required to read and appreciate the nuances and apply Bradbury's exquisite prose to life situations.<br /><br />I will undoubtedly read this again, because it is a true classic that rates right up there with Bradbury's "Farenheit 451" or "Something Wicked This Way Comes."

Rating:
Summary: I struggled
Review: I wanted to read the advanced book on the list of choices for summer reading 2 years ago. So, I chose Dandelion wine.

I was 12 then and I struggled through every page not understanding the plot or signifigance at all. To me it was a bunch of stories about different people in one town haphazardly thrown together with no discernable connection.

Maybe if I were to read it again today I could appreciate it better or at least understand it. But I was tormented by such extreme and utter boredom page by tedious page 2 years ago that I still loathe it with a vigorous passion.

The best experience I had with Dandelion Wine was using it to swat a particularily pesky mosquito.

Rating:
Summary: One of the Master's Best
Review: This book is a distillation of all the joy twelve-year-olds feel in the beginning of summer when school ends, and it continues to fill adults with the sense of life's potential we normally see only in children. For me it is one of Bradbury's best along with Something Wicked This Way Comes. I see the two books as the bright side and dark side of childhood, respectively.

I first read Dandelion Wine nineteen years ago, when I was just a few years older than the protagonist Douglas Spaulding, and I knew immediately that this book would shape the way I thought about life forever. It is still one of my favorites, and I am grateful that Bradbury gave me dandelion-colored glasses to see the world through in my adolescence.

The structure of the book is episodic, because it is a book written in memories. Like memories in our own minds, some of the episodes in this book are vivid while others are faint; some are exaggerated; and some do not quite make narrative sense although they make a deeper sense, like emotions remembered after the events surrounding them have faded from the mind.

Renowned as Bradbury is as a Science Fiction Writer, I think he is at his best when he is not writing Science Fiction but recalling the Midwest of his childhood. Bradbury has a unique gift for being nostalgic and optimistic at the same time. His nostalgia is not a lament for what was lost so much as a reminder that the wonder and potential we saw in the world as children are still there if we know how to look for them.

Yet even in this celebration of adolescence, Bradbury does not sugar-coat the truth. Life's disillusionments and heartbreaks are foreshadowed, and we sense the sinister forces lurking just off the scenes; but in spite of it all Bradbury's optimism shines as warmly as sunshine on midwestern grain in August. (OK, I'll admit that was a bad metaphor-- so stop reading my review and go read Dandelion Wine!)

Rating:
Summary: b-o-r-i-n-g
Review: As someone who has read a fair number of Bradbury's books, I can say with confidence that _Dandelion Wine_ is his most moving work. F451 will long be remembered for its urgency and message, but _Dandelion Wine_ is truly a more loving book, one that takes the time to know its characters, and lets their experiences spread slowly over its pages. I'm a somewhat prolific reader, and rarely revisit a book once I've finished it, but I think that this is one of the few I will come back to.

The book is a highly sentimental account of the summer of 1928, where Douglas Spaulding does the things young boys do in the summer: plays in dangerous places, speculates about adults, and feels general sense of dynamic "aliveness". The book is essentially a series of loosely connected vignettes of Douglas' various misadventures over the course of three months; it is highly entertaining and will almost certainly bring nostalgia for childhood back to anyone who shares the type of memories that Bradbury is relating through this book.

I recommend it very strongly to anyone who can get still get wrapped up in the ideas of their youth. A book full of wonder--read it and be 12 again.

Rating:
Summary: Most Excellent Piece of English Literature Ever Penned
Review: If there is a more beautiful, awesome, totally cool book ever written, someone please let me know! I consider this the most excellent piece of literature in the entire English language. I have over 3,000 books in my personal library and if I could only keep one, this would be the book. I have read it countless times over the past twenty years and only enjoy it more with each reading. I love this book!