Today, we pulled the story “Dandelion Wine” (1957) by Ray Bradbury from the bookshelf.). Not at all fantastic and even in many ways autobiographical, it stands apart in the work of the writer. The story takes place in the summer of 1928 in the fictional town of Green Town, Illinois. The prototype of the town is the hometown of Bradbury-Waukegan in the same US state. And in the main character, Douglas Spaulding, the author is easily guessed, the name is an allusion to Bradbury himself: Douglas is his father’s middle name, and Spaulding is the maiden name of his paternal grandmother. “Dandelion Wine” is a bright world of a twelve-year-old boy, filled with joyful and sad events, mysterious and disturbing. Summer is a time when amazing discoveries are made every day, the main thing of which is that you are alive, you breathe, you feel! According to the story grandfather Tom and Douglas make dandelion wine every summer. Douglas often reflects on the fact that this wine should store the current time, the events that occurred when the wine was made: “Dandelion wine. These very words are like summer on the tongue. Dandelion wine-summer caught and bottled.”
