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Ken Ward Series #2
The Young Forester
Pearl) Zane Grey (1872-1939) was an American author best known for his popular adventure novels and pulp fiction that presented an idealized image of the rugged Old West. He became especially interested in the West in 1907, after joining a friend on an expedition to trap mountain lions in Arizona. Grey wrote steadily, but it was only in 1910, and after considerable efforts by his wife, that his first western, Heritage of the Desert, became a bestseller. It propelled a career writing popular novels about manifest destiny and the “conquest of the Wild West. †Two years later he produced his best-known book, Riders of the Purple Sage (1912). He became one of the first millionaire authors. Over the years his habit was to spend part of the year travelling and living an adventurous life and the rest of the year using his adventures as the basis for the stories in his writings. His other works Betty Zane (1903), The Young Pitcher (1911), The Border Legion (1916), Wildfire (1917), To the Last Man (1922) and The Day of the Beast (1922).
141 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1910
59 people are currently reading
198 people want to read
About the author
Zane Grey
2,084 books591 followersPearl Zane Grey was an American author best known for his popular adventure novels and stories that presented an idealized image of the rugged Old West. As of June 2007, the Internet Movie Database credits Grey with 110 films, one TV episode, and a series, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater based loosely on his novels and short stories.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
May 1, 2023
Since I own a collection of Zane Grey novels (the first 42, in fact), I decided to read the first few this year in publication order. I have enjoyed them a great deal despite the fact that Grey has a tendency to loquaciously overwrite the setting, but I find that more than acceptable when one considers his grand love for the great outdoors. From my collection, The Young Forester is the seventh novel. Published in 1910, it also became the initial story of a series of adventure novels about the main character, Kenneth Ward.
Here, Ward, tells his Dad that he has decided to study forestry, because his friend has invited him to go west and join him in California the summer after he graduates from high school. His intention is to enter college for conservation and forestry, after his summer adventure. His summer is quite eventful, but rather than allow it to deviate him from his objective he uses it to affirm his commitment to the university. The story is quick-paced and is rather unique in comparison to the general plots of Grey westerns. The novel is classic, innovative, paradigm creating, and exceptional. Let this serve as my #46 of 50 novels from my Over 5 Years TBR for my 2023 reading goal.
Here, Ward, tells his Dad that he has decided to study forestry, because his friend has invited him to go west and join him in California the summer after he graduates from high school. His intention is to enter college for conservation and forestry, after his summer adventure. His summer is quite eventful, but rather than allow it to deviate him from his objective he uses it to affirm his commitment to the university. The story is quick-paced and is rather unique in comparison to the general plots of Grey westerns. The novel is classic, innovative, paradigm creating, and exceptional. Let this serve as my #46 of 50 novels from my Over 5 Years TBR for my 2023 reading goal.
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January 5, 2013The book was given to him when he was a boy so the act made it a extra special book for me. Known mainly for writing westerns, Zane Grey’s The Young Forester is often lost in the shuffle. While it’s often considered a children’s book, The Young Forester follows a young man, Kenneth, in his quest to become a forest ranger.
After gaining his father’s permission to go west to work with a childhood friend, Ken stumbles on a lumbering operation that’s stripping the trees and leaving nothing behind. Throughout the book, Ken struggles against the loggers to save Penetier Forest and the future of the industry.
Written in a time when the United States’ government was beginning to understand conservatism in dealing with the natural world, the story revolves around the same issues many people experienced. Between the underlying story, the strong characters, and beautifully detailed surroundings this book made me want to be a forest ranger. I’ve only read it once in the last twenty-five years and it drew me in just like it did the first day I was handed my copy.
After gaining his father’s permission to go west to work with a childhood friend, Ken stumbles on a lumbering operation that’s stripping the trees and leaving nothing behind. Throughout the book, Ken struggles against the loggers to save Penetier Forest and the future of the industry.
Written in a time when the United States’ government was beginning to understand conservatism in dealing with the natural world, the story revolves around the same issues many people experienced. Between the underlying story, the strong characters, and beautifully detailed surroundings this book made me want to be a forest ranger. I’ve only read it once in the last twenty-five years and it drew me in just like it did the first day I was handed my copy.
June 16, 2013
Just to change things up a bit I read this 100 year old book (original edition!) which came across my path. I don't normally read westerns, but this book had a premise unique to western novels that piqued my interest. The hero is an aspiring young forester promoting sustainable forestry practices (which are still not often followed today) and who plays a role in stopping an illegal logging operation in the West. True to its genre, the novel is highly action-oriented and simplistic, but was a fun diversion from reality and break from my usual non-fiction reading.
July 17, 2015
OKAY FINE. I liked it.
November 17, 2017
Pearl) Zane Grey (1872-1939) was an American author best known for his popular adventure novels and pulp fiction that presented an idealized image of the rugged Old West. He became especially interested in the West in 1907, after joining a friend on an expedition to trap mountain lions in Arizona. Grey wrote steadily, but it was only in 1910, and after considerable efforts by his wife, that his first western, Heritage of the Desert, became a bestseller. It propelled a career writing popular novels about manifest destiny and the aconquest of the Wild West. a Two years later he produced his best-known book, Riders of the Purple Sage (1912). He became one of the first millionaire authors. Over the years his habit was to spend part of the year travelling and living an adventurous life and the rest of the year using his adventures as the basis for the stories in his writings. His other works include: Betty Zane (1903), The Young Pitcher (1911), The Border Legion (1916), Wildfire (1917), To the Last Man (1922) and The Day of the Beast (1922).
February 16, 2020
I particularly liked this book because of the stance it takes on forests, conservation, and all of the ramifications of taking proper care of the nature that this world has provided us with. It talks of a young man who goes west from Pennsylvania for the summer, gets into a fix here and there and all because he is an idealist who wants to be in the area of forestry and has a vision for how nature can be properly cared for. The book is clearly ahead of its time and makes it clear that the ideas so many of us hold true about our dealings with the nature that surrounds us and takes care of us should be treated. I am blown away.
October 27, 2024
Read this book back in undergrad. I’ve since worked as a forester and moved out west after pursuing graduate studies. Changed a boy’s trajectory from the young, and eventually old forester who I’ll become.
January 1, 2025
When you need a dose of adventure, you can always turn to century-old Zane Grey adventure novels. This one is quite short and good fun, with forests, corruption, kidnapping and a forest fire to boot that our young hero survives.
July 9, 2017
I love all of Zane Grey's books, and it was interesting to remember as i was reading this one that it was one of his firsts. I learned a lot about trees!
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June 23, 2021Good
Short read.
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Short read.
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August 4, 2021
Kindle version - not able to read. Cannot increase font size enough to read. Very poor digital copy.
July 8, 2023
Very descriptive writing style with believable characters and plot. Fast paced and held my interest though I don't normally read Western genre.
December 24, 2014
The Young Forester is one of the most simply constructed plots that I've read of Zane Grey's western romance novels. It has also contains something new, though, that adds to its readability: the protagonist wants to enter a career path new to America--that of the forester, of protecting and nurturing the forests rather than clear-cutting them.
To see the principles of forestry and environmental protection promoted in a western romance first published in 1910 is an education of both how far our culture has come in caring for our environment, and how far it still has to go.
"[Lumbermen] are in such a hurry to get rich that they'll leave their grandchildren a desert. They cut and slash in every direction, and then fires come and the country is ruined. Our rivers depend upon the forests for water. The trees draw the rain; the leaves break it up and let it fall in mists and drippings; it seeps into the ground, and is held by roots. If the trees are destroyed the rain rushes off on the surface and floods the rivers. The forests store up water, and they do good in other ways."
The novel, though, is not a lecture on principles of forestry.
The tale follows young Ken who charges off from the east (where he does camp, hunt, fish, and enjoy the forests) to the raw wilderness of Arizona. There he meets unscrupulous lumbermen, adventure, and proves that he has, beneath his inexperienced tenderfoot ways, the steel of a man. And the principles of forestry, of course, prevail.
I enjoyed the book and was glad to see that the principles of scientific forestry prevailed in 1910, even if they are still struggling in 2011, one hundred years later.
Also available as a free ebook through Project Gutenberg: The Young Forester .
A Note About Zane Grey:
Zane Grey wrote his stories for the people who bought them. White, Anglo-Saxon Protestants, preferably male, are the protagonists. Woman are bosom-clutching individuals, more emotionally fragile than men--strong but only in their own female way. Racial and ethnic minorities are of lesser stature than the WASP main characters. Grey's romanticized vision of the wild west, unfortunately, did not include the visionary equality of gender, race, or cultural diversity. He was a man of his times--and those times had their issues.
To see the principles of forestry and environmental protection promoted in a western romance first published in 1910 is an education of both how far our culture has come in caring for our environment, and how far it still has to go.
"[Lumbermen] are in such a hurry to get rich that they'll leave their grandchildren a desert. They cut and slash in every direction, and then fires come and the country is ruined. Our rivers depend upon the forests for water. The trees draw the rain; the leaves break it up and let it fall in mists and drippings; it seeps into the ground, and is held by roots. If the trees are destroyed the rain rushes off on the surface and floods the rivers. The forests store up water, and they do good in other ways."
The novel, though, is not a lecture on principles of forestry.
The tale follows young Ken who charges off from the east (where he does camp, hunt, fish, and enjoy the forests) to the raw wilderness of Arizona. There he meets unscrupulous lumbermen, adventure, and proves that he has, beneath his inexperienced tenderfoot ways, the steel of a man. And the principles of forestry, of course, prevail.
I enjoyed the book and was glad to see that the principles of scientific forestry prevailed in 1910, even if they are still struggling in 2011, one hundred years later.
Also available as a free ebook through Project Gutenberg: The Young Forester .
A Note About Zane Grey:
Zane Grey wrote his stories for the people who bought them. White, Anglo-Saxon Protestants, preferably male, are the protagonists. Woman are bosom-clutching individuals, more emotionally fragile than men--strong but only in their own female way. Racial and ethnic minorities are of lesser stature than the WASP main characters. Grey's romanticized vision of the wild west, unfortunately, did not include the visionary equality of gender, race, or cultural diversity. He was a man of his times--and those times had their issues.
January 17, 2016
Howdy Doody Meets the Forest Service, December 15, 2010
This review is from: The Young Forester (Kindle Edition)
Oh, my, how the prolific Mr. Grey could dash out these pulp westerns. This one, published 100 years ago in 1910, is a tidy little morality tale introducing Mr. Grey's contemporaries to the wonders of this new concept: "government forestry."
Here's the plot summary (spoiler alert)(sort of): insanely naive boy has summer free after high school and before college; boy volunteers to be junior forester in Arizona; boy stumbles upon illegal sawmill in national forest; multiple kidnappings; wildlife encounters; gunshots; whoa, forest fire!; boy saves the day; boy goes home, remarkably, just as naive as when he arrived.
Sample character names include Hal, Ken, Dick, Ward, Smith, Jim, and an unscrupulous for-hire Latino generally referred to as "the Greaser." Lovely, just lovely.
Societally-acceptable racism aside, it's a quick and engaging, if moderately insulting, read (for, among other things, the suspension of disbelief required at frequent intervals, mostly corresponding to the practically metaphysical knowledge of forestry and government regulations that escapes our teen-aged hero's lips during long rides in the saddle in-between plot twists). And yet, it's an entertaining romp in the finest pulp tradition. Plus, I was referred to this fictionalized account of a zealous "Pinchot progressive" in the highly recommended telling of the 1910 Bitterroot Mountains fire "The Big Burn" by Timothy Egan. Yes, go read that fine book first, and then come back to consume this one.
The Kindle Edition is worth about as much as you pay for it (assuming that was $0.00), with an incomplete, but linked, table of contents and a number of typos (poor OCR of scanned text, judging by the number of words that should have begun with the letter "h" that erroneously started off with the letter "b"). Also, there are no chapter markers to help you gauge the next convenient stopping point, which is kind of pointless in any case since Mr. Grey tends to end every chapter with a cliff-hanger --- one can easily imagine the swirling organ music that is supposed to occupy one's mind between chapters. Come to think of it, does anybody know if Mr. Grey originally wrote these little novelas as radio plays?
This review is from: The Young Forester (Kindle Edition)
Oh, my, how the prolific Mr. Grey could dash out these pulp westerns. This one, published 100 years ago in 1910, is a tidy little morality tale introducing Mr. Grey's contemporaries to the wonders of this new concept: "government forestry."
Here's the plot summary (spoiler alert)(sort of): insanely naive boy has summer free after high school and before college; boy volunteers to be junior forester in Arizona; boy stumbles upon illegal sawmill in national forest; multiple kidnappings; wildlife encounters; gunshots; whoa, forest fire!; boy saves the day; boy goes home, remarkably, just as naive as when he arrived.
Sample character names include Hal, Ken, Dick, Ward, Smith, Jim, and an unscrupulous for-hire Latino generally referred to as "the Greaser." Lovely, just lovely.
Societally-acceptable racism aside, it's a quick and engaging, if moderately insulting, read (for, among other things, the suspension of disbelief required at frequent intervals, mostly corresponding to the practically metaphysical knowledge of forestry and government regulations that escapes our teen-aged hero's lips during long rides in the saddle in-between plot twists). And yet, it's an entertaining romp in the finest pulp tradition. Plus, I was referred to this fictionalized account of a zealous "Pinchot progressive" in the highly recommended telling of the 1910 Bitterroot Mountains fire "The Big Burn" by Timothy Egan. Yes, go read that fine book first, and then come back to consume this one.
The Kindle Edition is worth about as much as you pay for it (assuming that was $0.00), with an incomplete, but linked, table of contents and a number of typos (poor OCR of scanned text, judging by the number of words that should have begun with the letter "h" that erroneously started off with the letter "b"). Also, there are no chapter markers to help you gauge the next convenient stopping point, which is kind of pointless in any case since Mr. Grey tends to end every chapter with a cliff-hanger --- one can easily imagine the swirling organ music that is supposed to occupy one's mind between chapters. Come to think of it, does anybody know if Mr. Grey originally wrote these little novelas as radio plays?
October 29, 2012
The Young Forester reads like exciting, fantastic conservation propaganda for teen boys. This may not sound like the opening line of a review that gave the book four-stars ("really liked it"), but I mean well by it. Anyone who has read a few of the classics novels will recognize that this is, by no means, great literature. Nonetheless, anyone who spends any time day-dreaming about spending time in the wilderness will relate to the protagonist, and the frequent exultation of natural beauty is easy to read. The wildness of the West is made fairly tame, but it is an adventure that any boy would hope to have.
More importantly, Zane Grey's books were bestsellers for decades, and still the old volumes can be found on many bookshelves in Billings, Montana. This makes his presentation of the National Forest Service, still a young organization at the time of publication, at least somewhat descriptive, if not formative, of the American course of conservation.
I read this in my spare time over a weekend. That at least bodes well, coming from a guy who usually takes about a year to finish one of a dozen books in the 'to-read' pile. I don't regret the time spent on it, and if you like reading the words of a man who loves what he writes, you won't regret it, either.
More importantly, Zane Grey's books were bestsellers for decades, and still the old volumes can be found on many bookshelves in Billings, Montana. This makes his presentation of the National Forest Service, still a young organization at the time of publication, at least somewhat descriptive, if not formative, of the American course of conservation.
I read this in my spare time over a weekend. That at least bodes well, coming from a guy who usually takes about a year to finish one of a dozen books in the 'to-read' pile. I don't regret the time spent on it, and if you like reading the words of a man who loves what he writes, you won't regret it, either.
February 14, 2012
I enjoyed this book it is a very fast paced novella/novel. It is a quick read and full of action and adventure. The kindle edition that I read was full of misspellings but it was a free book so I can't complain. If you read it you will see words like beard instead of heard. h and b seemed to keep getting mixed up. The book was fun and exciting and I thoroughly enjoyed it. This was my first Zane Grey book and I will be reading more of his after this.
June 20, 2016
I thoroughly enjoy reading Zane Grey's stories as he has the knack of sucking you right into the action. I have developed a reading pattern that works well for me; I will read an old classic and then switch to one published recently. This gives me the opportunity to read again some of my old favorites and gain some new ones. Develop your own pattern of reading, but definitely read!
November 13, 2009
If my forestry career had started out like this I wouldn't have lasted a day!
June 21, 2013
I am trying to read all of Zane Grey's novels, but some of them are not very interesting to me. Some are very good, so, I will keep on reading.
March 19, 2019
Product Description
Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - I loved outdoor life and hunting. Some way a grizzly bear would come in when I tried to explain forestry to my brother. Hunting grizzlies! he cried. "Why, Ken, father says you've been reading dime novels." Just wait, Hal, till he comes out here. I'll show him that forestry isn't just bear-hunting. My brother Hal and I were camping a few days on the Susquehanna River, and we had divided the time between fishing and tramping. Our camp was on the edge of a forest some eight miles from Harrisburg. The property belonged to our father, and he had promised to drive out to see us. But he did not come that day, and I had to content myself with winning Hal over to my side.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews