Wilson Rawls (1913–1984)

Back around the time the 1980s turned into the 1990s, around the time I was ten, I read this two or three times in elementary school. For me and my friends—hunters, fishers, connected to countryfolk though cityfolk—it was an amazing book. (And, when the class got done reading it, we would watch the 1974 film in class.)

Rereading it in this "Anniversary Edition" (30, 40, 50, 55? They never say.) at 40+ provides both nostalgia and new perspectives. I loved the story. I loved the link the show more boy has with his dog. I love the hunting and the country and the countryfolk. It struck me as a boy and it was a good story for an adult too. Boy-and-his-dogs story, family story, hunting story, work hard story. All good. As an adult, the nostalgia of parts I remembered "scene-for-scene" (if not word-for-word) was heart-warming and encouraging. Coming on parts I didn't remember as much was intriguing and satisfying. There were some things that really stuck out as an adult that I didn't remember from my childhood readings. First, Billy's mother was part-Cherokee. Didn't catch that. Second, and most strikingly, the prayer and God's providence that suffuses important parts of the narrative. Maybe because I was a Baptist church-going lad it didn't strike me as odd. It did now. Not because I dislike reference to religion, but because I did not remember it and I think it would be disallowed now in any mainstream American children's literature.

Would any public school use this as a book to read now? I don't know if it still is. But, I wonder if it would be challenged for religiosity. I also worry it isn't assigned anymore because it doesn't appeal to our modern, twenty-first century world. Hunting? Nope. God? Nope. White folk? Nope. Country folk? Nope. Olden times? Nope. Guns? Nope. Death? Nope. Unfortunately, we live in a time where Terence's old truism—"Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto," "I am human, and I think nothing human is foreign to me"—is discarded. In the Woke age, books and stories must reflect the race, class, gender, time, attitudes, etc. of the reader only and anything else is suppressive, oppressive, structurally racist, appropriation, and so on. Shakespeare? That means nothing! It means everything. "I am human, and I think nothing human is foreign to me." Let us hope that Where the Red Fern Grows lives on to it's hundredth anniversary and is still being read by somebody. I will give it to my son one day. It is a classic for a reason, and has much to teach us.

I once reviewed this in another place like this: "A classic boy-becomes-a-man story. Any red-blooded American boy should read this book, and they should love it." I stand by that. show less

3.75

i first read this book in elementary school and i... well, i’m not sure that i liked it, but it certainly stuck with me. the image of rubin dying to the axe has lived in my brain ever since. i reread WTRFG because of that image, and upon rereading, i’m honestly surprised that i ever read it in the first place. billy’s casual cruelty/neglience regarding the housecat made my stomach turn, and i dont like the idea of hunting, and the fact that he cut down a beautiful old tree just to show more kill a raccoon doesnt sit right with me.

but also—the adults in this book, every one of them, are so gentle with billy. they’re unfailingly kind & sensitive and it’s so refreshing. and the love those dogs have for billy, his love for his dogs?? man, i sobbed like a little bitch when they died show less

This one is a childhood classic for a lot of people, including myself. On the one hand, there is plenty of pressure on a returning reader to seek out that nostalgia factor. But on the other hand, sometimes a book is what you really needed at a certain point of development, and it fully served that purpose back then.

All that aside, Where The Red Fern Grows is an okay book. The number one problem that I have on my adult revisit is the lacking consistency. Many plots are spiraled in on show more themselves, many characters read flat or not at all, and many details get lost in the ever-present message about God's plan. There's no shame in a story having a foothold in religion, given that it can guide the reader into the author's headspace to have that soft reinforcement of "how the world goes" in blessing and in strife. However, Red Fern definitely has a clubbing issue—where multiple instances of the aforementioned will of the Heavenly Father are used as an opportunity to extol the virtues of prayer and patience, right after a paragraph preceding the miracle that extols the virtues of prayer and patience.

I am a sucker for a good dog story, and this certainly is a story about good dogs. Old Dan and Little Ann are the stars of this tale— tail? —with plenty of personality, loyalty, and good proper hunting sequences. But I frequently found myself annoyed with how little of the hunting actually detailed the exhaustive process or clarified the exertion. When it's revealed that Billy is a very good raccoon hunter, with high pelt counts, there's an element of disbelief because much of the story has him stumbling around in the dark after his very talented pets. Classic doghunting has a whole dynamic to it, a feeling of extreme respect between dog and hunter, that is lacking here. The dogs are good, and they love their boy, so they hunt good. Eh? Sure.

Fact is... I'm a new-age kinda guy and the fact that women exist in this story to be at home and largely annoying about kids having hobbies was taxing after a while. Not a book I'd read to a daughter without some conversations about how people used to think about girls and boys. It should also be noted that I didn't like this book as a weird little child, being that I was an ardent believer in prayer but rarely got what I prayed for. You could say I was radicalized by how lucky Billy is, maybe a bit resentful, and that colored my opinion in clumpy red crayon streaks.

Oh, and. The "red fern" for which the book is named has the funniest introduction. In the actual last pages of the book, after the two dogs have passed—because of course they did, it's a sad story about growing up and becoming a man—we are introduced to an "Indian legend" about red ferns planted by angels over the graves of children lost in tragedy.

This has NEVER been addressed or mentioned anywhere else in the book but the nature of this legend [and thus the red fern being over the graves of Old Dan / Little Ann] is so comforting that Billy just lets go of his doggone grief like a handkerchief in a hurricane. I was so busy musing about this detail that I almost forgot to laugh when they fully abandon the family cat— that Billy's been terrible to for the whole book— during the big move to the city arc, which takes place in the background of the red fern lore drop. Not intended as comedy in any way but they acknowledge abandoning the cat and not a single adult even reacts to that knowledge. Amazing. show less

3 stars

What an ode to dogs! There's something very unifying about this book. Everyone who's ever read it (and that's a lot of people) in a classroom or independently, has at least felt the gut-wrenching pain of the ending in their very hearts and probably also wept sobbing tears in the last two chapters. Rawls has a way of describing place, the Ozarks he grew up in, and getting us to love Old Dan and Little Ann deeply. While the prose is often clunky and the characters a little 2-D, the show more story endures in classrooms for its tale of childhood and puppy-love in a deeply rural, perhaps long-gone America. Reading it with 5th graders is both a joy and a challenge, as I learned especially this year when one of my classes dissolved into hysterics and would not stop crying even for recess. show less