Bless The Beasts And Children (1970) - Plot & Excerpts
I do not usually write reviews on here, but I feel very strongly about this book. This book is one of my least favorite books of all time. There was not a moment of this book that I even somewhat enjoyed. Everything about this book frustrated me, and made the book hard to read. SPOILERSLet me start with the storyline. This book has the dumbest storyline that I think I've ever read. A bunch of traumatized teenage boys escape their summer camp and slaughter buffalo. That's basically all that happens in the book. It was a very uneventful book for the most part, and the storyline was bland and distasteful. Another thing that I hated about this book was the characters. Every single one of them. There was not a single person in this book that did not annoy me deeply. They all made stupid, quick decisions that no actual teenager would make. Also, the characters were not relatable in the slightest. I understand that I have not experienced what they have, but nothing about them made me think, "oh yeah, they're just teenage boys." My hatred for the characters was so extreme that the only time that I felt happy throughout the book was when Cotton died. Overall, this book is bland, boring, and frustrating. If there was a 0 stars option, I would have picked it, because in my opinion, this book does not even deserve a one-star rating. My daughter recently shared with me a news story about a troop of baboons where all the alpha males died, and the non-alpha males had to take over. The result was that the baboons were all nicer to each other, and everyone was happier. Box Canyon boys camp is sort of like a school for alpha males. Boys are trained to be strong, aggressive, physically competent. But what would happen if the losers got a chance to show their stuff? In most cases, probably nothing, as they have a tendency to fall apart under pressure. But in this story they have a leader named Cotton who encourages them to stick together, break the rules, follow their heart. The boys steal a truck and sneak off in the dead of night to set free the buffalo who are going to be slaughtered in the morning. Of course they succeed. At a price. Watching the boys rise to the challenge was a pleasure, if a somewhat predictable one. A surprising pleasure was the author's occasional flights of lyricism. His descriptions of the land, and of the buffalo huffing and stomping and taking hay from the boys' hands, sparkle with a glory-of-Eden beauty. I was moved by this description of Cotton trying to move a stuck truck: "He was seized. He had fine frenzies. His motor control stuck, he scattershot his aggression at gods too indifferent to defeat, and his refusal to face the hard facts of night and day and weak and strong and life and death and gravity bordered on the psychotic. He was redheaded." Mr Swarthout writes about all his losers like he really cares about them. Because he does. And because he does, we can, too, although they aren't really all that easy to love. The baboon analogy may not be all that apt because, although these boys are at the bottom of the pecking order, they are not a kinder, gentler breed. They are mostly self-absorbed in their respective neuroses (for example, clinging to a pillow, and sleeping underneath the bed), and lash out at each other as often as at their actual oppressors (for example, killing the cabin-mates' pet animals). They irritate. But in the end, because they have known rejection, they find in themselves compassion for the buffalo, and under Cotton's leadership they find the strength to do something about it. One of the greatest things about this book is that Mr Swarthout, with the power of his pen, was able to accomplish permanently what the boys set out to do. His story awoke a public outcry about the shooting of the captive buffalo, and the practice was discontinued.
What do You think about Bless The Beasts And Children (1970)?
Score one for the misfits. Ordinary, even misfit people are capable of extraordinary things.
—jrvalenzuela
Very good early high school level or 8th grade book.
—yakuzarose
