The Young Forester

by Zane Grey

First published 1910

Amazon EPUB Project Gutenberg

3.9(329)

Kenneth Ward is determined to make forestry his profession and travels west to Arizona, where the realities of life in the mountains prove far more demanding than his youthful enthusiasm suggests. Learning from working foresters, he faces isolation, physical danger and men whose interests conflict with the protection of the forest.

Written when professional forestry and conservation were becoming important parts of American public policy, the novel turns Ken’s coming of age into an outdoor adventure shaped by the management of land and natural resources. Grey combines the conventions of a boys’ adventure story with the landscape and frontier conditions of early twentieth-century Arizona.