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  • Published: 31 March 1999
  • ISBN: 9780553277531
  • Imprint: Bantam Dell
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $19.99

Dandelion Wine




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.

  • Published: 31 March 1999
  • ISBN: 9780553277531
  • Imprint: Bantam Dell
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $19.99

About the author

Ray Bradbury

RAY BRADBURY (1920-2012) was for decades the world's most
preeminent authors of science fiction and fantasy, acclaimed for such renowned titles as
Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles. He began writing quite young, selling jokes
to radio comedian George Burns when he was 14, and publishing his first short story--to
Imagination magazine--when he was 18. He would go on to write not only seminal sci-fi,
but numerous other kinds of books, as well as numerous television and movie
screenplays, such as for TV's Twilight Zone and John Huston's Moby Dick. When he
died in 2012, President Obama said, "His gift for storytelling reshaped our culture and
expanded our world."

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