Where the Red Fern Grows is a novel about a boy, Billy Coleman, and his two hunting dogs. It is set in the Ozark Mountains of northeast Oklahoma in the early 20th century. Billy is a 10 year old boy who lives with his family on a small farm He decides he wants a couple of hunting dogs and he works and scrimps and saves his money for two long years before he earns enough money to mail order his two dogs. At long last they come a male he names the male puppy “Old Dan” and the female “Little Ann.”  Billy, with the help of his grandfather, train the dogs to hunt raccoons, “coons.”

So soon Billy and his two dogs are out hunting coons every night. Billy gets very close to the dogs and they become a loyal and inseparable team and Rawls description of the growing love between the boy and his dogs is the best part of the book along with the descriptions of the rivers, creeks, mountains, valleys in the area. The raccoons don’t do as well though. You see Billy and his pups aren’t chasing them for the fun of it. Billy is making money by selling the hides and he is getting lots of them. He and his dogs become famous coon hunters and enter a local championship.

The book is a good read but it was written in 1961 treads upon modern sensibilities a little bit with the hunting scenes and the gory death scene. It has been made into a movie twice. Once in 1974 and then in 2003. I give the book three stars out of five.