Boys will be boys and somehow at summer camps in novels organized activity gives way to a less wholesome kind of free play....

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THE BUTTERFLY REVOLUTION

Boys will be boys and somehow at summer camps in novels organized activity gives way to a less wholesome kind of free play. Here it's the revolution of the title, a revolution against butterflies and birds and for kicks in which they somehow, not too plausibly, manage to place the counselors in the Brig and take over the camp. The revolution is fairly well regulated at first even though the cooking falls off, but in time the problems become bigger than they can handle and one boy is killed, another lynched, one overthrow leads to another, and ultimately Winston Weyn, a reluctant accomplice, decides that their Robespierre must be eliminated. Weyn tells this story in the form of his diary and he's a serious boy, who has done some serious reading (history and political philosophy). He's let off at the close because his intentions are obviously good ones. So are the book's which is another way of damming with faint praise or also paving the way to that inevitable limbo since the young miscreants here are not very interesting.

Pub Date: Jan. 27, 1966

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1966

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