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Bless the Beasts & Children became far and away Glendon Swarthout's biggest bestseller, never out-of-print from the day it was published in 1970, and more...is probably his masterpiece. It was a selection of the Literary Guild, the Doubleday Book Club, as well as a Reader's Digest Condensed Book. It has been published in foreign languages all over the world, even in Romania, twenty-five years later! Bless the Beasts & Children has sold well over 2 million paperbacks in the United States alone, and the latest Pocket Books 25th anniversary edition with a special introduction by Miles Swarthout, continues to be used in high school and college literature classes across the country. The novel was nominated by Doubleday as its Pulitzer Prize candidate in fiction in 1970. The film by Stanley Kramer in 1972 was not nearly as successful, but did contain some famous film music and can still be seen on television regularly (see film listings).
Based upon his only son's adventures in high school and as a summer camper and counselor at a private boys' ranch camp in Prescott, Arizona, Bless the Beasts & Children tells a tragicomic tale of a group of disturbed teenaged boys from over-privileged families who are "warehoused" by their inattentive parents at a summer session at an Arizona boys camp in hopes that their lazy, urban kids will be toughened-up in this camp's rigorous, cowboy program. While on a field trip with their militaristic counselor, Wheaties, the boys see an annual buffalo "hunt" sponsored by the Arizona Fish and Game Department, in which their counselor has drawn a permit. Sickened by the slaughter of these great beasts while trapped in big pens by these "sportsmen," the youths resolve to save the next days' allotment. Riding from their camp later that day on their horses, the boys steal a pickup in Prescott and head on up to Flagstaff on their mission-of-mercy. Complications arise, but these problem boys band together and manage to free these national symbols, but only after strenuous effort and at great cost. less
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Feb 22, 08
By: Blueeagle48
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