when does where the red fern grows take place
Where the Red Fern Grows - wikipedia Where the Red Fern Grows Jump to : navigation , search For the film adaptations , see Where the Red Fern Grows ( 1974 film ) and Where the Red Fern Grows ( 2003 film ) . Where the Red Fern Grows <Td_colspan="2"> First edition hardback cover Author Wilson Rawls Country United States Language English Genre Children 's novel Publisher Doubleday Publication date 1961 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 . Contents ( hide ) 1 Plot summary 2 Films 3 Background 4 Reception 5 See also 6 Footnotes 7 External links Plot summary ( edit ) When leaving work in Idaho 's Snake River Valley , Billy Colman sees a pack of dogs attacking a stray coonhound . He takes the stray home to feed it . Once it has rested , Billy sets it free , knowing that it will return home . The experience reminds Billy of his childhood in the Ozark Mountains of Oklahoma . He wants a dog , and his parents offer to get him a mongrel from a neighbor . He wants two coonhounds , but his parents tell him they can not afford them . Billy finds a magazine ad for a Kentucky kennel which breeds Redbone Coonhounds and sells them for $25 each . He goes to work performing odd jobs and saves the $50 he needs with the help of his grandfather . Since it takes two years to do so , his grandfather writes to see if the kennel will honor the ad . They do , and the price has dropped so the two puppies only cost $40 . Billy 's dogs are delivered to the freight depot in Tahlequah . His family does not have transportation , so he finds his own way to get to the depot and walks through the hills . He picks up his puppies , which are a male and a female . He buys a gift for each member of his family with his extra $10 before heading back home . On the way back home , he spends the night in Robber 's Cave in the Sparrow Hawk Mountains . There he builds a fire and plays with the puppies . While trying to sleep , he hears a noise that he realizes is the cry of a mountain lion . In the morning , he continues on . He comes to a sycamore tree and sees the names Dan and Ann carved inside a heart in the bark and decides to name the puppies Old Dan and Little Ann . To train Old Dan and Little Ann , Billy traps a raccoon with the help of his grandfather and uses its pelt to teach them to hunt . During their training , their personalities become apparent : Old Dan is brave and strong , while Little Ann is very intelligent . Both are very loyal to each other and to Billy . On the first night of hunting season , Billy takes Old Dan and Little Ann out for their first hunt . He promises them that if they tree a raccoon , he will do the rest . They tree one in a large sycamore , which Billy had previously nicknamed `` The Big Tree '' . As he tries to call them off , they look at him sadly and he cuts the tree down , which takes him two days and costs him blistered hands . In the end , when he 's about to give up his effort , Billy offers a short prayer for strength to continue . A strong wind starts to blow and the tree falls . Old Dan and Little Ann take the raccoon down . Billy , Old Dan , and Little Ann go hunting almost every night and become well - known in the Ozarks . Billy and his grandfather make a bet with Rubin and Rainie Pritchard that Old Dan and Little Ann can tree the `` ghost coon '' . It leads them on a long , complicated hunt , and Rubin and Rainie want to give up . When they finally have it treed , Billy refuses to kill it . Rubin then orders his dog , Old Blue , to attack Old Dan , who is smaller ; and Rubin starts to beat Billy . Little Ann helps Old Dan , and together they injure Old Blue ; Rubin runs to attack them with an axe , but he trips , falls on it and kills himself . Billy 's grandfather enters him into a championship coon hunt , putting him against experienced hunters and the finest dogs in the country . Before it starts , he enters Little Ann into a conformation contest , where she wins the silver cup . On the fourth night of the hunt , Old Dan and Little Ann tree three raccoons , making it to the final round . The sixth night , they tree one before a blizzard hits . Billy , his father , grandfather , and the judge lose sight of the dogs . When they finally find them , Billy 's grandfather sprains his ankle . They build a fire , and when Billy 's father chops down a tree , three raccoons jump out . Old Dan and Little Ann take two of them down , and chase the third to another tree . In the morning , the hunters find them covered with ice circling the tree . That raccoon wins them the championship , gold cup , and $300 of jackpot money . One night Old Dan and Little Ann tree a mountain lion , and it attacks . Billy enters the fight with his axe , hoping to save his dogs , but they end up having to save him . Eventually , they kill the mountain lion , but Old Dan is badly wounded , and Billy finds his intestines in a bush . He dies late that night . Billy is heartbroken , and Little Ann loses the will to live , stops eating , and dies of grief a few days later on Old Dan 's grave . Billy 's father tries to tell him that it is all for the best , because with the money they received from winning the championship hunt , they can move to town . He goes to visit Old Dan and Little Ann 's graves and finds a giant red fern between them . According to Native American legend , only an angel can plant one . He feels ready to move on knowing that his dogs are always going to be remembered . Films ( edit ) The novel was made into a 1974 film starring Stewart Petersen , James Whitmore , Beverly Garland , and Jack Ging . It was followed by a sequel in 1992 , which starred Wilford Brimley , Chad McQueen , Lisa Whelchel , and Karen Carlson . The film was remade in 2003 and starred Joseph Ashton , Dabney Coleman , Ned Beatty and Dave Matthews . Background ( edit ) 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 . '' 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 . ' '' 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 . 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 . 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 . '' Reception ( edit ) Although sales of the novel began slowly , by 1974 over 90,000 copies had been sold . In 2001 , Publishers Weekly estimated that it had sold 6,754,308 copies . Today Where the Red Fern Grows is required reading in many American schools . One critic said it will please adults as well as children . I remember crying so much through this book , and even today I tear up thinking of Old 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 . Every year in Tahlequah Oklahoma there is a Red Fern festival . It is listed below in the links . See also ( edit ) List of Where the Red Fern Grows Characters Footnotes ( edit ) Jump up ^ Where the Red Fern Grows Discussion Guide Scholastic.com ^ Jump up to : Where the Red Fern Grows ( 1974 ) on IMDb Jump up ^ IMDb : Where the Red Fern Grows : Part Two ^ Jump up to : Wilson Rawls , Dreams Can Come True , audio recording with commentary by Jim Trelease ^ Jump up to : http://www.trelease-on-reading.com/rawls.html Jump up ^ https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=336&dat=19740216&id=bMdSAAAAIBAJ&sjid=AH4DAAAAIBAJ&pg=5192,3528282&hl=en Jump up ^ `` All - Time Bestselling Children 's Books '' . PublishersWeekly.com . Retrieved 2017 - 01 - 29 . Jump up ^ https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=336&dat=19730929&id=3dBSAAAAIBAJ&sjid=G38DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6645,6875378&hl=en Jump up ^ `` The Catoosa County News - Google News Archive Search '' . news.google.com . Retrieved 2017 - 01 - 29 . Jump up ^ `` Top 100 Children 's Novels # 34 : Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls '' . School Library Journal . Retrieved 2017 - 02 - 10 . Jump up ^ `` Wilson Rawls '' . Idaho Falls Public Library . Retrieved 2017 - 02 - 10 . External links ( edit ) Oracle Think Quest , Education Foundation : Where the Red Fern Grows . SparkNotes : Where the Red Fern Grows . http://www.redfernfestival.com Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Where_the_Red_Fern_Grows&oldid=804803797 '' Categories : 1961 American novels American children 's novels American novels adapted into films Novels set in Oklahoma Children 's novels about animals Doubleday ( publisher ) books Ozarks in fiction 1961 children 's books Hidden categories : Pages to import images to Wikidata Talk Contents About Wikipedia Čeština Кыргызча Simple English Edit links This page was last edited on 11 October 2017 , at 07 : 35 . Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply . 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1. Where the Red Fern Grows - children's novel
2. Plot summary - boy buys and trains two hunting dogs
3. Film adaptations - 1974 and 2003 films
4. Background - author's journey to publication
5. Reception - sales and popularity of the novel