Dandelion Wine is a semi-autobiographical novel that takes place over the summer of 1928.   12-year-old Douglas has an amazing revelation: He is alive.  He decides to document the things he observes and learns.  Each chapter contains a short story involving his friends and neighbors.  I hate to give much more details, because part of the sweetness of the novel is the child-like discovery and understanding of more abstract concepts like happiness, time travel, and death.

I almost gave up on this book.  It is a bit slow, but it is slow in the same way that summers were slow when you were a kid.  I promise you the magic is there; you just need to give it a chance to charm.

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