I found Ray Bradbury a difficult read in high school. Not for lack of understand or the style of his writing, but I was reading for a 'surface story', for lack of a better term. I wanted something very future-tech-Sci-Fi, and it didn't fit.
It only took a few years, a few real world experiences and one re-read of one story for me to see the depth in his writing, the metaphors about today's and yesterday's societies, and his open questions about the future. It led to many re-reads and a lot of appreciation of his work.
Dandelion Wine was the story that taught me that sci-fi didn't need space ships or robots to deliver its essential explorations of humans and their relationships with technology. I must have read it 15 years ago, but I still remember the wistful dialogs about the smell of grass clippings in the summer and the roar of lawnmowers, gone forever in a world whose only sci-fi tech was grass that never needed mowing.
It only took a few years, a few real world experiences and one re-read of one story for me to see the depth in his writing, the metaphors about today's and yesterday's societies, and his open questions about the future. It led to many re-reads and a lot of appreciation of his work.