Where The Red Fern Grows

Hint: It's likely where my soul should be

When I was younger, I absolutely hated everything we had to read for English class. 

From 5^th grade to high school (and even now), every book was often pushed aside, avoided until the last moment. They all followed this common theme that made me absolutely dread reading them. They were all sad, not a little bit sad, but heart wrenchingly sad. Whether it was the Great Gatsby with it’s ever so happy ending, or The Kite Runner which made me want to throw the book out the window, each and every book was utterly depressing to me. Even my little brother echoed the sentiment and soon we began to describe this phenomena as “sad dog stories”. 

This phrase came about because the first books we ever really had to read on our own in class were, you guessed it, stories where the dogs die. Those stories have haunted us till this day. For me, the book was Where the Red Fern Grows. In fact just trying to write this and re-reading the summary of the story made me cry. 

If you’ve never read Where the Red Fern Grows, consider yourself lucky. The basics are, a boy, Billy, saves up all his money and buys two gorgeous red coonhounds named Old Dan and Little Ann. He trains them to hunt raccoon and they make an exceptionally good team. The story sucks you in convincing you that this team will never fail, in fact they even win the coon hunting championship against everyone else! But no, we can’t end on a happy note. The dogs accidentally tree a mountain lion, who in turn attacks them and Billy. In order to save their master, the dogs fight till the near end. The boy is safe but Old Dan has his stomach split open, his guts wrapped around the bushes. Billy has to unwrap his intestines, clean them off quickly and shove them back into this poor dogs stomach. Then Billy rushes home dragging his barely breathing dog with him, to try and save him. Old Dan manages to hold on for a few days before finally passing away, leaving Little Ann and Billy. As if this didn’t hurt enough, Little Ann is so distraught with grief, that she will do nothing but lay on Old Dan’s grave and soon dies from heartbreak.


I read this in 5th grade, and it was awful. Not only that but our teachers had us watch the movie so we could really imagine the absolute heartbreak this little boy felt. It may sound silly but I never quite recovered from reading that story. It was just so awful and seemingly so unnecessary to read that I couldn't get passed it.  There's no particular reason this book was assigned except for fitting the reading requirements (whatever those were). There must be a reasoning behind this book and all the others, whether it be the push that one can move pass sadness, just as Billy does. He is comforted by the bright red fern that grows over the graves of his dogs, as it's said to have been placed there by an angel, and it's what lets him move on. Maybe it was to teach us the bond between creatures and how strong it can be. Or maybe it was to just make a bunch of 5th grades slightly traumatized for life. 

Really it might be to make us appreciate the good in our lives, that we get a bit of luxury by experiencing such sadness in books rather in our own lives. 

While all of those are possibilities, the actuality is I appreciate the fact I no longer have to read stuff like this. Because, unlike Billy I never found comfort in that red fern. Rather, it just made me cry even more.

 

Works Cited
Where The Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls