This book would be a perfect little gem without the explanatory dialogue between the two old men in the middle of the action, right after the boy Douglas's Joycean epiphany. There is this moment of pure interior beauty, something that reminded me of To Kill a Mockinbird in its more enlighting and poetic shades, a plot twist so deep in its meaning that it feels like a blow in the stomach, a sweet and relieving one; and immediately after this, there is the explanation in form of dialogue. Not needed, not welcome, cumbersome, awkward. It's a pity, but you can skip it and go on reading and, believe me, the novel is worth it.
The novel itself is the last part of [b:Dandelion Wine|50033|Dandelion Wine (Green Town, #1)|Ray Bradbury|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1374049845s/50033.jpg|1627774], published 55 years before, but it stands alone without problems (I haven't read the first novel yet, and I had no clue there was a "prequel" while reading, nor I had any problem understanding the plot).
What follows is not actually a dramatic spoiler, but I'll hide it anyway.
In the first chapters, children's war against the elderly mummies who want to make them too bored and old is ok, but the elderly schoolboard chairman who ACTUALLY wants to make children into bored and sad adults, and who accepts the children gang's challenge, is darkly, worringly hilarious.

"Wake up, Cal. We are a minority, like the dark African and the lost Hittite. We live in a country of the young. All we can do is wait until some of these sadists hit nineteen, then truck them off to war."

Everything, in this mock war, is serious and is not at the same time, and the characters find themselves making each other lives better without even being conscious of it, until empathy makes the magic against their will.
Then the epiphany, and the coming of age of the child with its sweet-sour flavour, mirrored by the acceptance of the fading away of life on the part of the older man.
The giant figures of grandparents, wise, loving, patient, guiding, are the glue that keeps the narrative together since the start. They prevent any hint of cynicism from sneaking in the description of the cranky old men who love hating youth when they are not too busy dying; their presence and significance also prevent it all to look too much like A Christmas Carol with sexual awakening.
Oh, and the sweetest gift in the end of any story: an afterword by the author, with love. ( )

Bradbury is simply a master wordsmith. Every time is a pleasure. At times I do get lost, but then a sentence or phrase will capture me with its eloquence. Thank you Mr Bradbury for your writing all these years. ( )

The 3rd in the Green Town series, but really just a sequel to Dandelion wine...an exciting re-encounter with the well loved characters from the first book.

While this was a good book...it wasn't as Bradbury as I was expecting. With a totally different feel and vibe than Dandelion wine, it was easy to forget at times this was a sequel.....it felt a bit too modern. I still enjoyed it...but, I do feel it paled a bit in comparison to the first 2 books in this series.....to Bradbury's work in general. The 50+yr gap in the writing of this sequel is apparent. ( )

This book, published in 2006, was a sequel to “Dandelion Wine.” Bradbury says that he brought a complete book titled “Summer Morning, Summer Night” and his publisher recommended they publish the first 90k words (which became “Dandelion Wine”) and save the rest for a future novel.
“All you had to do was pull a book from the shelf and open it and suddenly the darkness was not so dark anymore.”
I read this story in my mid-forties and I went I sat down to read it again; I could recall the mood it created more than the plot. I felt transported to a simpler time, both in terms of youth, as well as a period that was pre-broadcast news, pre-cold war, and certainly pre-internet/social media. There’s a slender plot, it’s not much to base a novel on -- some young boys rebelling against some old men in a small town. The real strength is nostalgia, the melancholy, and the feelings that his style of writing evokes. The prose is dialog heavy and sits somewhere between poetry and traditional language. With many of Bradbury’s similar works, such as “October Country,” “Something Wicked this Way Comes,” or “From the Dust Returned” I often fall out of the story, appreciating his metaphors, or turn of phrase, or even just word choice. It’s a tradeoff between losing the ‘mind-movie’ in my head, but fully enjoying the crafty prose.
“It rose above town like a great dark burial mound, drawn to the skies by the summoning of the moon, calling out in a grieved voice of days long gone, and days that would come no more, whispering of other autumns when the town was young and all was beginning and there was no end.”
I will say the ending caught me off guard, I had no recollection of it from my first read. Perhaps I’m too immature to appreciate it, but it made me smirk and chuckle. I won’t spoil it, but it wraps up the theme of the sequence of coming of age and coming of death, or the passing of the ‘torch’ in a most unusual way.
Four colorful stars, transitioning from lemon yellow to burnt orange, for this final Bradbury novel that connects the turn of the seasons to cycle of human life. ( )

I love Bradbury so I'm not going to say TOO much... Not a bad ending to a book that just tries too hard. I had the feeling throughout the novel that Bradbury was trying to be Bradbury and this kept distracting me. And all you Kindle Paperwhite and Fire HDX users can blow me! Stick with [b:Dandelion Wine|50033|Dandelion Wine|Ray Bradbury|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1374049845s/50033.jpg|1627774].

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