Introduction

The summer of '28 was a vintage season for a growing boy. A summer of green apple trees, mowed lawns, and new sneakers. Of half-burnt firecrackers, of gathering dandelions, of Grandma's belly-busting dinner. It was a summer of sorrows and marvels and gold-fuzzed bees. A magical, timeless summer in the life of a twelve-year-old boy named Douglas Spaulding—remembered forever by the incomparable Ray Bradbury.

The only god living in Green Town, Illinois, that Douglas Spaulding knew of.

The facts about John Huff, aged twelve, are simple and soon stated.

• He could pathfind more trails than any Choctaw or Cherokee since time began.
• Could leap from the sky like a chimpanzee from a vine.
• Could live underwater two minutes and slide fifty yards downstream.
• Could hit baseballs into apple trees, knocking down harvests.
• Could jump six-foot orchard walls.
• Ran laughing.
• Sat easy.
• Was not a bully.
• Was kind.
• Knew the words to all the cowboy songs and would teach you if you asked.
• Knew the names of all the wild flowers and when the moon would rise or set and when the tides came in or out.

He was, in fact, the only god living in the whole of Green Town, Illinois, during the twentieth century that Douglas Spaulding knew of.

“[Ray] Bradbury is an authentic original.”—Time

Editorial Review

World-renowned fantasist Ray Bradbury has on several occasions stepped outside the arenas of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. An unabashed romantic, his first novel in 1957 was basically a love letter to his childhood. (For those who want to undertake an even more evocative look at the dark side of youth, five years later the author would write the chilling classic Something Wicked This Way Comes.)

Dandelion Wine takes us into the summer of 1928, and to all the wondrous and magical events in the life of a 12-year-old Midwestern boy named Douglas Spaulding. This tender, openly affectionate story of a young man's voyage of discovery is certainly more mainstream than exotic. No walking dead or spaceships to Mars here. Yet those who wish to experience the unique magic of early Bradbury as a prose stylist should find Dandelion Wine most refreshing. --Stanley Wiater

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