Where the Red Fern Grows
 First edition hardback cover | |
| Author | Wilson Rawls |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Children's novel |
| Publisher | Doubleday |
Publication date | 1961 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 245 pp |
| ISBN | 0-440-22814-X |
| OCLC | 39850615 |
Where the Red Fern Grows is a 1961 children's novel by Wilson Rawls about a boy who buys and trains two Redbone Coonhound hunting dogs.[1]
Films
The novel was made into a popular 1974 film starring Stewart Petersen, James Whitmore, Beverly Garland, and local Tahlequah native Lisa Christine Christiansen .[2] It was followed by a sequel in 1992, which starred Wilford Brimley, Chad McQueen, Lisa Whelchel, and Karen Carlson.[3] The film was remade in 2003 and starred Joseph Ashton, Dabney Coleman, Ned Beatty and Dave Matthews.[2]
Background
In a talk given to a group of schoolteachers, Wilson Rawls related how he wrote the first version of the novel (along with five full novels, and hundreds of short stories and novelettes) during the years that he worked on construction in Mexico and Idaho. He rolled the manuscripts up and saved them in a trunk at his parents' home. When he met his fiancée, Sophie, he did not want her to know about his failed dreams of becoming a writer, so about a week before he got married he visited his parents and burned all his manuscripts. He then returned to Idaho and married Sophie. About three months later, he confessed to his wife that he had burned all his manuscripts and had always dreamed of being a writer. She encouraged him to rewrite one of his stories. He quit his job and wrote the novel in just three weeks. He said, "I had it memorized." [4] He would not let her read it until it was finished. He said, "I finished it on a Friday. I gave it to her Saturday morning and I went to town. I stayed in town all day. I knew she had time to read it. I called her on the phone. I just knew she was going to laugh at that writing...but when I called on the phone, she said, 'You get back out here to the house, I want to talk to you...this is the most wonderful dog and boy story I've ever heard in my life.'" [4] She encouraged him to lengthen the story, because she felt it was too short to be a novel but too long to be a short story. He went to work on lengthening the manuscript. He wrote it longhand with no punctuation. She then typed it up and submitted it to the Saturday Evening Post.[4][5]
The Saturday Evening Post rejected the manuscript in three weeks. Sophie then sent the manuscript to the Ladies' Home Journal. She believed that a woman editor at the Ladies' Home Journal would like the story. About four months later, Rawls received a letter from the Ladies' Home Journal saying that it was the wrong kind of story for their magazine, but they wanted to send it to the Saturday Evening Post. Upon the second submission to the Saturday Evening Post, it was accepted. It was first published in serialization in the Saturday Evening Post in 1961 under the title The Hounds of Youth.[4][5]
Doubleday then accepted the book for publication. Rawls said Doubleday then "broke my heart." They changed the title to Where the Red Fern Grows, and attempted to market it to adult readers. For about six years, it languished on shelves and failed to sell. Doubleday was going to put it out of print, but one agent named Mr. Breinholt from Salt Lake City fought for it and asked for just a few more months to market it. He got Rawls a speaking engagement at the University of Utah to a conference of over 5,000 reading teachers and librarians. Copies of it were made available to them. When they took it back to their schools, the children loved it, and orders began pouring in. Jim Trelease states, "Each year since then, it has sold more copies than the previous year."[4]
Reception
Although sales of the novel began slowly, by 1974 over 90,000 copies had been sold.[6] In 2001, Publishers Weekly estimated that it had sold 6,754,308 copies.[7] Today Where the Red Fern Grows is required reading in many American schools.[8] One critic said it will please adults as well as children.[9]
I remember crying so much through this book, and even today I tear up thinking of Big Dan and Little Ann. I also loaned this to my [then] children’s librarian, because the library copy was always out. I even marked the pages, “Get out tissue here.”
— DeAnn Okamura
I love, love, love this book with all my heart and soul. My fourth grade teacher read it to me eons ago, and I’ve read it to two of my three boys. There’s something about weeping together uncontrollably that builds a community of readers…
— Tess Alfonsin
There is a statue of Billy and his dogs at the Idaho Falls Public Library.[11]
See also
Footnotes
- ^ Where the Red Fern Grows Discussion Guide | Scholastic.com
- ^ a b Where the Red Fern Grows (1974) at IMDb
- ^ IMDb: Where the Red Fern Grows: Part Two
- ^ a b c d e Wilson Rawls, Dreams Can Come True, audio recording with commentary by Jim Trelease
- ^ a b http://www.trelease-on-reading.com/rawls.html
- ^ https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=336&dat=19740216&id=bMdSAAAAIBAJ&sjid=AH4DAAAAIBAJ&pg=5192,3528282&hl=en
- ^ "All-Time Bestselling Children's Books". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 2017-01-29.
- ^ https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=336&dat=19730929&id=3dBSAAAAIBAJ&sjid=G38DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6645,6875378&hl=en
- ^ "The Catoosa County News - Google News Archive Search". news.google.com. Retrieved 2017-01-29.
- ^ "Top 100 Children's Novels #34: Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls". School Library Journal. Retrieved 2017-02-10.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|dead-url=(help) - ^ "Wilson Rawls". Idaho Falls Public Library. Retrieved 2017-02-10.