The Book Of Summer

“Bees do have a smell, you know, and if they don’t they should, for their feet are dusted with the spices of a million flowers”.

--Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

I’ve been reading Dandelion Wine, and through it, rediscovering the nuances and rituals of summer. Bradbury set this story in the late 1920’s in a small Midwestern town. It’s more a series of interrelated short stories than a novel, similar in set-up to The Martian Chronicles. It’s also one of the least sci-fi of his books.

It amazes me that though Bradbury is writing of his own childhood, eighty years ago, he also captures the best parts of my own childhood, which is much more recent.

Do children still live and play in summer like they did in Dandelion Wine? Or like I did?

I've decided that Dandelion Wine is the official Book of Summer. The Secret Garden, of course, is the official Book of Spring. But I cannot think of official books for fall or winter. Can you? It has to be one in which the season is more than just part of the background--it must be almost a character itself, or a catalyst for the action of the story.

Submit your nominations for any season in the comments below. :o)