Wilson Rawls was born in the Ozark Mountains, which spread out over eastern Oklahoma and Western Arkansas, on September 24, 1913. Like his character Billy, Rawls spent a lot of time during his childhood exploring the nearby hills, accompanied by his hound. He loved to tell hound stories, even though he did not read a proper book until he was in high school. When he grew up, it was only natural for him to write novels. At one point he threw away his manuscripts, but his wife made him write them out again. Rawls was ashamed because he had a poor command of grammar, but his wife edited the books, and both Where the Red Fern Grows (1961) and The Summer of the Monkeys (1976) became great successes. Rawls died in 1984, in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Show Where the Red Fern Grows concerns a boy who buys and trains a pair of coonhounds. ("Coon" is short for raccoon.) Raccoons are considered pests by farmers, because they steal food; but they are also very clever creatures, and so it became a sport to train hound dogs to catch raccoons. Coon hunting is done at night because raccoons are nocturnal--they sleep during the day and move around at night. The dogs enter the woods and explore until they catch the scent of a coon's trail. They then begin to bark and follow the trail. The coon will try to shake the hounds off its path. To do this, it can jump in a river and cross at any point on the opposite bank. After all, nothing leaves a scent in water. This is only the most common of many ways for a coon to trick a dog. For a dog to catch a coon, it has to chase the coon until the coon runs up a tree and is stuck. Then the dog makes a special howl that tells its master it has "treed" a coon. The master comes and shoots the coon off the tree or chops down the tree so that the hounds can catch and kill the coon. These actions and others associated with coon hunting were intimately familiar to Rawls, and they form the backbone of Where the Red Fern Grows. Where the Red Fern Grows
Where the Red Fern Grows is a 1961 children's novel by Wilson Rawls about a boy who buys and trains two Redbone Coonhounds for hunting.[1] The book is a work of autobiographical fiction based on Rawls' own childhood in the Ozarks. Plot summary[edit]Billy Coleman, a middle-aged man, rescues a redbone hound under attack by neighborhood dogs. He takes it home with him so that its wounds can heal. In light of this event, he has a flashback to when he was a ten-year-old boy living in the Ozark Mountains. Young Billy Coleman wants nothing more than a pair of hounds for coon hunting. After seeing a magazine ad for coon hounds, Billy spends the next two years working odd jobs to earn the $50 he needs to buy two puppies. Billy's dogs are delivered to Tahlequah, over 20 miles away. Billy decides to walk the distance. As he returns with the dogs, he sees a heart carved on a tree with the names "Dan + Ann" and decides to name the puppies Little Ann and Old Dan. With his grandfather's help, Billy teaches his dogs to be very loyal to each other and to Billy. The first night of hunting season, Billy promises the dogs that if they tree a coon, he will do the rest. They tree one in a huge sycamore, which Billy believes is far too large to chop down. Remembering his promise to his dogs, Billy spends the next two days attempting to chop down the sycamore. Exhausted, Billy prays for the strength to continue, whereupon a strong wind blows the tree over. Billy and his hounds become well-known as the best hunters in the Ozarks. Billy's grandfather makes a bet with Rubin and Rainie Pritchard that Old Dan and Little Ann can tree the legendary "ghost coon" that has eluded hunters for years. After a long, complicated hunt, Old Dan and Little Ann manage to tree the raccoon, but having seen how old and smart the ghost coon is, Billy cannot bring himself to kill it. Billy tries to stop the Pritchards from killing the raccoon, leading to a fight with Rubin. The Pritchards' dog Old Blue joins the fight, provoking Old Dan and Little Ann to attack Old Blue to drag him away from Billy. Rubin tries to drive Billy's dogs away with Billy's axe, but trips, falls on the blade, and dies. Billy is deeply troubled by the tragic turn of events, but does not regret his choice to spare the ghost coon. Billy's grandfather enters him into a championship coon hunt against experienced hunters. Before the main hunt starts Billy enters Little Ann into a beauty hound competition. She wins, so Billy gets to take home a small silver cup as his prize. The hunt is scheduled during a particularly cold week, and many of the other hunters are forced to give up. However, Billy, who is used to mountain winters, is able to reach the final round. On the last night, Old Dan and Little Ann trap three raccoons in a single tree, but a sudden blizzard forces Billy to take shelter. The following morning, the dogs are found covered in ice but still circling the tree. All three raccoons are captured and Billy and his dogs win the championship and a $300 prize. One night while the trio is hunting, a mountain lion attacks the dogs. Billy fights to save his dogs, but the mountain lion turns on him. The dogs manage to save Billy by killing the mountain lion, but Old Dan later dies of his injuries. Over the next few days, Little Ann loses the will to live and finally dies of grief atop Old Dan's grave, leaving Billy heartbroken. Billy's father tries to comfort his son by explaining that he and Billy's mother have long wished to move to town where their children can get an education, but could not afford to do so without the extra money brought in by Billy's hunting. Knowing that Billy's dogs would suffer in town and that Billy would be devastated to leave them behind, they intended to allow Billy to live with his grandfather. Billy's father believes that God took the dogs as a sign that the family was meant to stay together. On his last day in the Ozarks, Billy visits Old Dan and Little Ann's graves and finds a giant red fern growing between them. Remembering a legend that only an angel can plant a red fern, Billy also comes to believe that perhaps there truly was a higher power at work. The adult Billy closes by saying that although he hasn't returned to the Ozarks, he still dreams of visiting his dogs' graves and seeing the red fern again one day. Films[edit]The novel was the basis of a 1974 film starring Stewart Petersen, James Whitmore, Beverly Garland, and Jack Ging. A sequel was released in 1992, starring Wilford Brimley, Chad McQueen, Lisa Whelchel, and Karen Carlson. The film was remade in 2003 and starred Joseph Ashton, Dabney Coleman, Ned Beatty and Dave Matthews.[2] Reception[edit]Although sales of the novel began slowly, by 1974 over 90,000 copies had been sold.[3] In 2001, Publishers Weekly estimated that it had sold 6,754,308 copies.[4] There is a statue of Billy and his dogs at the Idaho Falls Public Library.[5]  Where the Red Fern Grows Statue at the Idaho Falls, ID public library. Characters in the book[edit]
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What kind of dog is Where the Red Fern Grows?For a dog whose reason-to-be is the down-to-earth job of chasing critters through the woods, there is something mysterious, mystical even, about the Redbone Coonhound. Author Wilson Rawls knew it when he penned his 1961 autobiographical novel.
Is there really a red fern?Red ferns do not exist.
What happened to the dog in Where the Red Fern Grows?When they finally return home, his mama runs the dog's entrails through water, but it is not enough. The dog dies, and Billy is crushed.
Where did the red fern grows come from?Author Wilson Rawls wrote the book in 1961 while living in Idaho Falls. But the book was almost never published. Like the book's main character Billy, Rawls grew up in the Ozarks in Oklahoma.
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What type of pet did Wilson Rawls have?
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