Dandelion Wine By, Ray Bradbury

This is the quintessential, nostalgic summer read. Ray Bradbury, best known for writing Science Fiction has written a semi-autobiographical tale of childhood, that takes place in the Summer of 1928, in a fictional town of Green Town, Illinois. Its the story of a 12 year old boy, Douglas Spaulding who explores the 'vastness' of his small town during his summer recess.
I found this book to be a nostalgic joyride to my long lost free wheeling summers, spent with my best friends, Lucia and Jackie. Every day was a new adventure that involved a variety of other local characters, who unwittingly allowed us to infiltrate their back yards and pick berries, jump off their porch and pick flowers. The end of the day was marked with a daily visit to Coopers candy store for ice cream or candy.

Whenever I consider buying new tennis shoes, Ray Bradbury's description is indelible in my mind.

When asked by his father why he needs new tennis shoes, The author presents a very good argument.

"It was because they felt the way it feels every summer when you take off your shoes for the first time and run in the grass. They felt like it feels sticking your feet out of the hot covers in wintertime to let the cold wind from the open window blow on them suddenly and you let them stay out a long time until you pull them back in under the covers to feel them, like packed snow. The tennis shoes felt like it always feels the first time every year wading in the slow waters of the creek and seeing your feet below, half an inch further downstream, with refraction, than the real part of you above water.
"Somehow the people who made tennis shoes knew what boys needed and wanted. They put marshmallows and coiled springs in the soles and they wove the rest out of grasses bleached and fired in the wilderness. Somewhere deep in the soft loam of the shoes the thin hard sinews of the buck deer were hidden. The people that made the shoes must have watched a lot of winds blow the trees and a lot of rivers going down to the lakes. Whatever it was, it was in the shoes, and it was summer."

Enjoy a nostalgic read that takes you back to small town America, in the eyes of a 12 year old boy. You'll never forget it.