Dandelion Wine

"Dandelion Wine" is a book by Ray Bradbury. I wouldn't call it a novel, as it's more like a collection of vignettes. It's also not quite fantasy, but it is full of magic.

It's set during the summer of 1928 in the town of Green Town, Illinois, and is told mostly through the perspective of a 12 year old boy named Douglas Spaulding. The magic comes from the wonder that Douglas has in the world around him. A wax fortuneteller at the carnival is transformed into poor soul cruelly imprisoned by the black magic of Napoleon, an old man's memories become a vessel for travel into the past, and a new pair of shoes is able to make Douglas run faster than the wind.

I really liked a lot of the little vignettes, and Douglas and his brother Tom are both really fun characters to read about. But they didn't seem quite right to me: too virtuous, too wise, I'm not quite sure what it was. Also, the writing, full of rich details as it was, didn't grab me at first. It was wondrous while reading, but took a while each time I started up again. This might have been because I was constantly being interrupted in my reding of it by schoolwork or other things I needed to read first.

All in all, it was a good book, but not necessarily one I would read again. I'll probably read other Bradbury if I can, however.