Farewell Summer by Ray Bradbury
Harper Voyager (paperback) 2006
167 pages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farewell_Summer
BLURB FROM THE COVER
In Green Town, Illinois, thirteen-year-old Douglas Spaulding is in the midst of a small civil war; the elderly pitted against the young in an age-old battle.
As the school board’s figure of authority, Mr Calvin C. Quartermain attempts to outwit Douglas and his young cohorts at every turn, while the boys’ antics become ever more daring and mischievous.
But once the shadow of winter draws across Green Town, the boys quickly realize that their enemy is not so much the senior members of their own community, but rather time itself, which is ever ebbing away.
EXTRACT
There are those days which seem a taking in of breath which, held, suspends the whole earth in its waiting. Some summers refuse to end.
REVIEW
Farewell Summer is a sequel to Bradbury’s novel, Dandelion Wine.
I really enjoyed Farewell Summer. Bradbury’s offers a coming-of-age tale with a difference in this short novel. Farewell Summer is rich, vibrant and beautifully written. I felt a big emotional connection to the lives of Douglas and the other characters. As I read, Farewell Summer, I remembered the summers of my childhood and teenage years. They seemed to last for months and days were filled with magic. Bradbury knows how to capture those last fading moments of childhood.
RATING
