Key themes
- A boy's love for his dogs — and the grief that follows
- The Ozark wilderness as both beautiful and harsh
- Earning the thing you want most — and what it teaches
About this book
Where the Red Fern Grows is a 1961 children's novel by Wilson Rawls about a boy who buys two hunting dogs. ---------- Also contained in: Prentice Hall Literature: Bronze
Published in 1961, Where the Red Fern Grows draws on Rawls's own childhood hunting with dogs in Oklahoma. It has sold millions of copies and is one of the most emotionally affecting books in the middle-grade canon.
Discussion questions
- Billy works for two years to earn the money for his dogs. How does Rawls develop this determination — and what does the earning achieve that receiving the dogs as a gift would not?
- The relationship between Billy, Old Dan and Little Ann is the novel's emotional core. How does Rawls develop the three-way bond — and what does each bring to it?
- The ending is one of the most affecting in children's literature. How does Rawls prepare for it — and what does he want readers to take from it?
- The novel is set in the Ozark Mountains in the 1930s. How does the specific landscape and period serve the story — and what does the Depression-era context add?
- Where the Red Fern Grows is often the first book that makes children cry. What does it do — and why does animal loss affect young readers so powerfully?
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