BLESS THE BEASTS AND CHILDREN

This moving counter-cultural young adult novel, written in 1970, follows a band of adolescent rejects as they sneak out of an Arizona summer camp to liberate buffalo from a state-run shooting pen. The story is composed of flashbacks, showing who these six outsiders are and how they came to join "the bed-wetters" bunk at Box Canyon Boys Camp, interspersed with the adventure of breaking out of camp and freeing the buffalo. Scott Brick tends to overperform in this reading. His attempts to draw words out for dramatic effect result only in a vocal cockiness that does not work well for the story. Transitions between the main plot and the flashbacks are abrupt and confusing. S.E.S. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/ SEP 04]