Where the Red Fern Grows
First edition hardback cover
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| Author | Wilson Rawls |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Children's novel |
| Publisher | Doubleday |
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Publication date
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1961 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 245 pp |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 39850615 |
Where the Red Fern Grows is a 1961 children's novel by Wilson Rawls about a boy who buys and trains two Redbone Coonhound hunting dogs.
When leaving work in Idaho's Snake River Valley, Billy Colman sees a pack of dogs attacking a stray coonhound. He chases the pack away and takes the stray home to nurse it back to health. Once it has recovered, Billy sets it free, knowing that it will return home.
The experience reminds Billy of his childhood growing up in the Ozark Mountains of Oklahoma. He wants a dog, and his parents offer to get him a puppy from a neighbor's litter. He is very specific, however, and tells them he wants two coonhounds, but his parents tell him that they cannot afford them. Billy finds a magazine ad for a Kentucky kennel which breeds Redbone Coonhounds and sells them for $25 each. Determined to get dogs, he goes to work performing odd jobs such as selling vegetables to local fishermen and manages to save the $50 he needs with the help of his grandfather. However, since it takes two years to do so, his grandfather writes ahead to see if the kennel will honor the ad. They do so, and the price has dropped so the two puppies will only cost $40.
Since the mail buggy does not deliver live creatures, Billy's dogs are to be delivered to the freight depot in Tahlequah. His family does not have transportation, so he finds his own way to get to the depot and chooses to go straight through the hills. He picks up and leaves with his puppies, which are a male and a female. He buys a gift for each member of his family with his extra $10 before heading back home; he buys a pair of overalls for his father, some dress cloth for his mother, and a bag of candy for his sisters.
On the way back home, he spends the night in Robber's Cave on Sparrow Hawk Mountain. There he builds a fire and plays with the puppies. While trying to sleep, he hears a noise that he realizes is the cry of a mountain lion. In the morning, he continues on. He comes to a sycamore tree and sees the names Dan and Ann carved inside a heart in the bark and decides to name the puppies Old Dan and Little Ann.
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