A coming-of-age story from one of sci-fi's masters. Stranded children on a field expedition must band together and reestablish society in the wilds of a strange planet. Once they have build a viable, growing colony, they are rescued and must deal with re-entering their former lives, no longer as young adults in the colony they built, but again seen as children.

one of my favorite of heinlein's juveniles

A short book with some interesting ideas. Not terribly well written and not in my top list of favorite books but still pretty good. I've read other survival novels in the past and this one didn't add a large amount of new material especially in terms of survival intrigue or interpersonal relationships but the science fiction element contributed to the interest.

Man have relations between the sexes changed since the book was written

"Life, all life, has the twin drives to survive and to reproduce. Intelligence is an aimless byproduct except as it serves these basic drives."

Yeah, okay. The reason I had two failed attempts to read "Lord of the Flies" is because having a group of schoolboys left on their own and trying to be grown-ups is not something I really cared about at that time. And I'm saying this because it seems that this book shares some similarities. The difference is that the initial part of Golding's book was soporific while Heinlein's was extremely exciting.
⠀
So, in brief, this is a decent and entertaining Heinlein juvenile. I guess my search for a 5⭐ juvenile will have to wait, for some reason I thought this was the one. I guess I was expecting a dazzling story with a lot of planet-hopping adventures and a little less social commentary. But, again, it's a good survival story and I always enjoy, to a lesser or greater extent, the exploration of human nature and, in this case, the struggle to avoid falling into barbarism.

Some other themes worth mentioning: strong female characters, Malthusian overpopulation, teleportation, isolation and probably some other Heinlein-ations I'm forgetting about...

Sort of a sci-fi Lord of the Flies, but with more plot movement than philosophizing. Good, quick airport read. Very entertaining.

2.5 stars
Positive remarks: Very entertaining. Unpredictable and original story (especially in 1955).
Negative remarks: this can't possibly be a timeless classic, let's face it, the mentality of the author is a bit outdated. I couldn't manage to like that Rod sorry.

Lord of Flies meets Hunger Games. Not into dystopia & space travel but reading this one was a great experience.