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Post by Calenture on Feb 28, 2009 6:46:12 GMT
Uncredited cover Dandelion Wine by Ray BradburyFirst published 1957; cover for Corgi 1969 edition shown. Greentown, Illinois, and the summer of 1928 is about to begin. Douglas Spalding is twelve years old, a good age, and summer is a magic time when he can sleep in the high cupola above his grandfather's house and watch the town go to sleep and wake up. There are a pair of shoes in a shop window, which he knows will allow him to run fast as a deer. There is Mr Jonas, the junkman who saves lives, and redistributes those things that some folk don't want to others who do. Leo Auffmann the jeweler is intent upon building a happiness machine. In the great house lives Colonel Freeleigh, the human time machine who remembers the great herds of bison. Dividing the town is the ravine, a dark green place, primeval and frightening, the sort of place that might be haunted by the Lonely One. For typical of Bradbury, this idyllic Eden has its own serpent. There is a murderer in Greentown. The rather dark story of Lavinia Nebbs, who craves excitement - and the Lonely One - is the strongest section of the book. And all summer long, Douglas, his younger brother Tom and the other neighbourhood kids collect dandelions to bring to grandfather's place, where they are taken to the cellar and pressed to make golden bottles of dandelion wine. A characteristic word painting of childhood, from Bradbury.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Mar 1, 2009 12:54:14 GMT
This book was simply written about my childhood. I rate it as top top top. The Sound of Summer Running is the most accurate description of a young boy's mind imaginable. I have to get it out again. Loved these covers too.
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