Does anyone know what this sequel to Dandelion Wine is about specifically?

quote:

Originally posted by Parish:
Does anyone know what this sequel to Dandelion Wine is about specifically?

biplane does!

It looks like it is going to be very good.
They're showing Oct 1st availability.

http://www.amazon.com/Farewell-Summer-Novel-Ray-Bradbury/dp/0061131547
From Amazon.com reviews:

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. This poignant, wise but slight "extension" of the indefatigable Bradbury's semiautobiographical Dandelion Wine picks up the story of 12-year-old Douglas Spaulding in October of 1928, when the warmth of summer still clings to Green Town, Ill. As in his episodic 1957 novel, Bradbury evokes the rhythms of a long-gone smalltown America with short, swift chapters that build to a lyrical meditation on aging and death. Playing at war, the imaginative Douglas and his friends target the town's elderly men, and the outraged 81-year-old bachelor Calvin C. Quartermain attempts to organize a counterattack against the boys' mischief. Rebelling against their elders—and the specter of age and death—Douglas and his gang steal the old men's chess pieces before deciding that Time, as embodied by the courthouse clock, is their true nemesis. The story turns on a gift of birthday cake that triggers Douglas and Quartermain's mutual recognition: "He had seen himself peer forth from the boy's eyes." Soon thereafter, Douglas's first kiss and new, acute awareness of girls serves as the harbinger of his inevitable adulthood. Bradbury's mature but fresh return to his beloved early writing conveys a depth of feeling. Look for a Q&A with Bradbury in the Aug. 21 issue.
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From Booklist
Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine has aged remarkably well, losing none of its nostalgic charm during the 49 years since its first printing. Writing sequels is something entirely new in Bradbury's long career of perpetual creativity, and so his return to Green Town, Illinois, and the escapades of the author's boyhood alter ego, Douglas Spaulding, is surprising as well as welcome. Whereas Dandelion Wine takes the form of a series of interconnected tales, Farewell Summer tells one unbroken story set during an autumnal heat wave in the year Douglas turns 14. Lamenting summer's sudden passage, he and his childhood cronies decide to wage "war" against the senior tenants of the stately houses lining Green Town's cavernous ravine. Intending to stop time in its tracks, the gang purloins chess pieces from the town square and sabotages the workings of the courthouse clock with fireworks. None of these antics sits too well with town elder statesman Calvin C. Quartermain, who launches his own brand of psychological warfare against the boys, which culminates in Douglas' first kiss. A final showdown between the two rivals finds both moving toward an unexpected, mutually enlightening truce. While Bradbury aficionados may find the novel's brief length somewhat disappointing, they'll find, too, that his prose remains masterfully precision-tuned. A touching meditation on memories, aging, and the endless cycle of birth and death, and a fitting capstone, perhaps, to a brilliant career. Carl Hays

What ever happened to the dog in the red bandana?

Wow...thanks guys. I can't wait to get thoroughly lost in Greentown once again...

This may have been posted here before (I was away from all things web when the following was published), but I haven't seen it:

On the Lake County History Blog in August appeared this fascinating post about the Waukegan (Lake County) courthouse(s). Lots of pictures, many of which I have never seen before:

http://lakecountyhistory.blogs...es-1875-present.html

The courthouse is recognisable from its appearance on the cover of the Subterranean Press edition of FAREWELL SUMMER:

I won't describe what it's about since that's already been done here, but the book is really befitting for a sequel. I'd definitely recommend it to you if you liked Dandelion Wine. I personally liked Farewell Summer more. The old man's story was really sad.