Where the Red Fern Grows
Wilson Rawls
Introduction
Background
Discussion Starters
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Where the Red Fern Grows
Wilson Rawls
Where the Red Fern Grows: Introduction
Have you ever wanted
something so badly
that you would do
anything to get it?
About the Story
• This story is presented as a memory which is called a
FLASHBACK. This is the story of a young, rural boy in
which the first-person narrator tells about events that
occurred 50 years earlier.
• Throughout the novel, we see the narrator as both a
child and as a maturing young man who sets his heart
on owning a pair of raccoon-hunting dogs.
• The main character, Billy Colman shows many strong
characteristics:
–
–
–
–
Perseverance (fights through and keeps going)
Determination
Appreciation of family and nature
Possess a belief that a higher power than he is operating in
his life
– By the end, of the novel, the author shows us that Billy has
gained yet another strength, the ability to accept changeeven death- as an inevitable part of life.
Where the Red Fern Grows: Introduction
All Billy Colman wants
is two raccoonhunting hound
dogs to trek with
him through the
forests and river
valleys
of the Ozark
Mountains.
Where the Red Fern Grows: Introduction
But Billy’s father tells him times are hard.
Many farmers can’t afford to
feed their families.
Some have taken jobs with the
railroad just to put food on the table.
Where the Red Fern Grows: Introduction
Ten-year-old Billy
vows to earn the
money on his own
by working in the
fields, selling bait
to fishermen,
trapping animals
for skins, and
picking berries to
sell in his
grandpa’s store.
Where the Red Fern Grows: Introduction
After two years of hard work,
Billy’s bank is full of dollars and
coins.
So, his grandpa orders two prize coonhound
puppies from an advertisement in a magazine.
Where the Red Fern Grows: Introduction
To pick up his pups
from the train depot,
Billy will have to walk
barefoot to the nearest
town, which is more
than 20 miles away, in
the dark of night,
through forests and
hills and across rivers.
Where the Red Fern Grows: Introduction
Does Billy’s persistence
and hard work pay off?
And will he survive the dangerous journey?
Where the Red Fern Grows: Background
Like his character Billy, author Wilson
Rawls grew up on a small farm in the Ozark
Mountains of northeastern Oklahoma.
The government
had given the
land to Rawls’s
mother because
of her Cherokee
heritage.
Wilson Rawls
• Wilson Rawls was born 1913 in Scraper, Oklahoma. He
lived with his parents on a farm and was taught to read
and write by his mother. He said his life changed when his
mother brought home the novel, The Call of the Wild, by
Jack London.
• Rawls wrote this novel twice! The first version, along
with many of his other stories, was secretly burned by
Rawls. When he admitted this action, his new wife
encouraged him to sit down and re-create at least one of
the books. Appearing first as a series in the Saturday
Evening Post (under the title Hounds of Youth) in the
spring of 1961, Where the Red Fern Grows was published
in hardcover.
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Where the Red Fern Grows: Background
In 1887, the U.S. government passed a law to
redistribute reservation land among
individual members of American Indian
nations.
The goal was
to create
traditional
farms much
like those of
white settlers.
The Cherokees
•
•
•
•
In Chapter 2, Billy, the main character, talks about the setting of the
story:
“The land we lived on was Cherokee land, allotted to my mother
because of the Cherokee blood that flowed in her veins. It lay in a
strip from the foothills of the mountains to the banks of the Illinois
River in northeastern Oklahoma.”
The land Billy describes was not the original home of his mother’s
people. For centuries, the Cherokee lived much farther east in the
southern Appalachian Mountains of what is now North Carolina. In
that ancestral homeland, the Cherokee hunted, fished, and farmed.
As Billy’s words suggest, Cherokee society was matrilineal: the
inheritance of land was passed down through the female line; married
med went to live on their wives land.
With the arrival of European explorers and settlers, Cherokee life
changed dramatically. During the 1750s and 1760s, the Cherokee
tried unsuccessfully to fight off the newcomers who were moving
rapidly through their land.
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The Cherokees
• Then, forced to choose sides during the American Revolutionary
War, the Cherokee joined with the British against the American
colonies; the British seemed more likely to let the Cherokee retain
most of their land and their traditional ways. When the British lost
the war, the Cherokee tried to hang onto their homeland by
adapting to the colonists’ ways. All of their efforts were
unsuccessful.
• By 1835, some members of the Cherokee gave in to government
pressure (Andrew Jackson was president) and signed a treaty with
the U.S., and moved west to stretch of land in northeast Oklahoma
that was promised to the. Many Cherokee, however, chose not to
move.
• During the winter of 1838-1839, United States troops forced 15,000
Cherokee out of their homes in the Appalachians. They were
marched, primarily on foot, along a 1,000-mile-long trail to
Oklahoma. Thousands died, and the march became known as the
Trail of Tears
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Where the Red Fern Grows: Background
But like much of this
land, the Rawls
home was very rural
far from any town,
school, or doctor,
and surrounded by
thick woods and
wild animals.
Where the Red Fern Grows: Background
Life was already a challenge when the
stock market crash of 1929 helped trigger
the Great Depression and a decade of lost
jobs,
low wages,
low prices,
low profits,
slow trade,
and high
poverty.
Where the Red Fern Grows: Background
Like many Americans, writer Wilson Rawls was
forced to leave home and travel the country in
search of work.
The search for jobs took
him to
• Alaska
• Canada
• Idaho
• Mexico
• Oregon
• South
America
• During this time, daily life was hard. Many made do without
conveniences such as electricity until the 1930s and 1940s.
EVERYONE in the family had work to do, and while many chores
were stereotyped by gender (men and boys working outside;
women and girls inside, in the garden, caring for chickens, and
providing food and clothes), everyone contributed in one way or
another. Farm families made weekly or monthly trips to town,
but the rest of the time stayed around home with a fixed routine
of meals (lots of fried meat, cornbread, gravy, potatoes, and
fruit) and hard work. The area for several miles around one’s
home provided fishing and hunting pals, doctors, midwives
(delivers babies), annual picnics, courting opportunities
(dating), and company and support for all of life’s milestones.
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Where the Red Fern Grows: Background
The lack of food, clothing, shelter, and
medical care was a very real threat in those
days.
The need to put food
on the table and
stay healthy were
daily struggles for
Wilson Rawls and
his family and for
the Colemans in
Where the Red Fern
Grows.
Where the Red Fern Grows:
Discussion Starters
Discuss (1)
• Name other stories, books, or movies about
a boy and his dog or another pet.
• Are you familiar with books about a girl and
her animal?
• Why do you think these ideas appear often in
fiction? What effect do these coming-of-age
stories have on a reader? Why are they
powerful?
Where the Red Fern Grows:
Discussion Starters
Discuss (2)
Billy keeps his plan to save money and send
away for the dogs a secret from his father.
He even sneaks away in the dark of night on
his twenty-mile journey.
•Why do you think he kept his dream a
secret?
•Did he make the right choice? Why or why
not?
Ozarks
Where the Red Fern Grows is set in the mountain country
of the Ozarks. Some of the locations mentioned in the
novel were Cyclone Timber county, Black Fox Hollow,
Tahlequah, and Cherokee land.
Ozarks Overview
The Ozarks is an upland area of low mountains
which are deeply incised by water erosion. The
eroded areas are often very rugged, being
difficult and treacherous to foot travel.
Though the mountains of the Ozarks are relatively low,
the highest point being only 2,578 feet above sea level,
they nonetheless are the only large area of elevated land
between the Appalachian Mountains and the Rockies.
Because the mountain peaks are relatively uniform in
height, the term Ozarks Plateau is quite descriptive.
Find the Region
Encompassing about 55,000 square miles, the Ozarks Plateau is roughly
bounded by the Mississippi River on the east, the Missouri River on the
northeast, the Osage and Neosho rivers on the northwest and west, and the
Arkansas River along the south. All of south central Missouri and most of
northern Arkansas fall within these bounds. On a highway map, connect New
Madrid to Cape Girardeau to St. Louis to Jefferson City to Osceola, in
Missouri, to Miami to Tahlequah, in Oklahoma, to Russellville, in Arkansas,
back to New Madrid, and you will have a good outline of the Ozarks Plateau.
The area in the
light green
shows the area
the story takes
place.
Remember,
Billy’s
family lived
in the
Oklahoma
area.
Redbone Hounds
In the story, Billy saves his money for 2 years to buy his
coonhound pups. The 2 dogs together are a remarkable
hunting team, and help earn money during these difficult
Depression years.
These dogs became Billy’s best friends. It is these two
pets who become the central focus of the story. Explore
these links to learn more about the attributes of Redbone
Coonhounds.
Redbone Hounds
American Kennel Club
Blue Tick
Hound
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Hunting Raccoons
• The kind of raccoon hunting that takes place in the
novel follows a definite pattern: The intelligent,
problem-solving, resourceful raccoon often travels
alone and generally knows when a hunting hound is on
its trail. The raccoon will run along fences, swim creeks,
and backtrack on itself in order to hide its scent-and
itself- from a hound. The hound is trained to figure out
these tricks. Its goal is to pick up the scent of a
raccoon, bawl (a kind of bark) to let its master know
when it has found a trail, and stick with the trail until it
forces the raccoon to climb a tree. It’s the dog’s
responsibility to keep the raccoon in the tree until the
hunter arrives and gets the raccoon out of the tree.
Either the dog or the hunter kills the raccoon.
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