Summer Morning, Summer Night

Starred review from September 15, 2008
As intoxicating as Bradbury’s legendary Dandelion Wine
, the 27 new and old stories in this potent collection resonate with timeless power. All set in Green Town, Ill., the vintage highlights include “Miss Bidwell,” a sweet romance about a spinster and the delayed homecoming of her first love; the brilliant “The Screaming Woman,” featuring the wide-eyed first person narration of a frantic 10-year-old who discovers a woman’s premature burial; and “At Midnight, in the Month of June,” in which a killer plays a demented game of hide and seek. Contemporary one-page shorts such as “The River that Went to the Sea” and “The Projector” round out a lyrical feast with the savor of “apricots and fresh apples and as water tastes when you rise at night and walk into a dark warm summer kitchen and drink from a cool tin cup.”