The Milagro Beanfield War - Hardcover

Nichols, John Treadwell

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805028056 ISBN 13: 9780805028058

Publisher: Henry Holt & Co, 1994

Synopsis

It was a soft, early spring morning with the mist still clinging to the mountain and the blackbirds just starting to swoop low over the alfalfa fields when Jo Mondragon - thirty-six with not much to show for it, a feisty hustler with a talent for trouble - slammed his battered pick-up to a stop, tugged on his gumboots, and marched into the arid patch of ground his father had once cultivated. Carefully, impulsively (and also illegally), he tapped into the main irrigation channel.
And so began - though few knew it at the time (least of all Joe) - the great Milagro beanfield war.
But like everything else in the dirt-poor town of Milagro, it would be a patchwork war, fought more by tactical retreats than battlefield victories. Gradually, ever so fumblingly, the small farmers and sheepmen began to rally to Joe's beanfield as the symbol of their lost rights and their lost lands. And downstate in the capital, the Anglo water barons and power brokers huddled in urgent conference, intent on destroying that symbol before it destroyed their multimillion-dollar land-development schemes.
The tale of Milagro's rising is widly comic and lovingly tender, a vivid portrayal of a town that, half-stumbling and partly prodded, groped its way toward it own stubborn salvation.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Joe Mondragon, thirty-six with not much to show for it, a feisty hustler with a talent for trouble, slammed his battered pickup to a stop, tugged on his gumboots, and marched into the arid patch of ground. Carefully, if impulsively (and also illegally), he tapped into the main irrigation channel.

And so began -- though few knew it at the time -- the Milagro beanfield war. But like everything else in the dirt-poor town of Milagro, it would be a patchwork war, fought more by tactical retreats than by battlefield victories. Gradually, ever so awkwardly, the small farmers and sheepmen begin to rally to Joe's beanfield as the symbol of their lost rights and their lost lands. The tale of Milagro's rising is wildly comic and lovingly tender, a vivid portrayal of a town that, half-stumbling and partly prodded, groped its way toward its own stubborn salvation.

From the Inside Flap:

Joe Mondragon, thirty-six, is a feisty hustler with a talent for trouble, who slammed his battered pickup to a stop one day, tugged on his gumboots, and marched into an arid patch of ground. Then, illegally, he tapped into the main irrigation channel. And so began John Nichols' classic tale of the little guy against the big guy -- THE MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR.

About this edition

• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0805028056
• ISBN 13: 9780805028058
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 456
• Illustrator: Templeton Rini