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  • Essay / Book Review of Where The Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

    Where the Red Fern Grows is an autobiographical children's fiction novel written by Wilson Rawls, published in 1961. The story is about a boy and his two Redbone Coonhounds, which he saves and trains for hunting. The book is set in the 1920s in rural Oklahoma, the childhood home of our main character. Our main characters are Billy Colman and his dogs, Old Dan and Little Ann. They face many difficult situations where Billy and his faithful dogs are tested. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay Our main character is Billy Colman. Billy is heavily based on the early childhood of Wilson Rawls. We meet him as an adult, coming home from work and getting into a dog fight. He interrupts the dog fight and heals the one who is attacked. It was a red-boned coonhound. After feeding and bathing the dog; he releases the dog for his journey home. After that, Billy starts telling us about his childhood and how he had a sick case of what he calls "puppy love." Billy lived on a farm with his parents and three sisters. They were extremely poor and Billy wanted to have two dogs for hunting. When he told his father this, his father told him that hunting dogs were too expensive for them, about $75 for two dogs. While cleaning out an old fishing camp, Billy finds an old magazine talking about selling red-boned dogs for $25 each. With this, over two years, he saves up to $50 to buy two red-boned dogs. Once he gets these dogs, he names them Old Dan and Little Ann. Billy's grandfather buys him the dogs, telling him they will arrive from Kentucky in a week. Billy doesn't want to wait a whole week, so he goes into town to pick them up early. In town, he found a store where he bought overalls for his father and a few yards of fabric for his mother and sisters with the money he had left because dogs were discounted to $20 per dog, leaving him with $10 $. Additionally, in town he meets many children who criticize his appearance and give him mean insults because he did not receive a proper education and clearly lives on a farm. He soon got into a fight with children who made fun of his dogs. Another moment is the first raccoon he caught. He promised his dogs that he would do the rest if they chased him as one. Old Dave and little Ann chased an old raccoon up a tree, a huge sycamore to be exact. Billy decided to cut down the tree while the raccoon is inside, so he can get the raccoon for his dogs. It took a lot of work, but he got it done in the end. Billy's grandfather has a vivid imagination and takes Billy on many of his adventures. He constantly bragged about how great Billy and his dogs were, often exaggerating the story just a little bit. Soon Ruben Pritchard, a mean kid ready for insults and ready to fight, and Rainie Pritchard, Ruben's younger brother. Rainie isn't the brightest, but he's still trying to make bets. One day, the Pritchards get under Grandpa's skin and make a bet. They claim there is a ghost coon that no one has been able to catch. And if Billy's dogs are as good as they say, they should be able to catch him. While hunting the coon, once it is cornered and capable of being killed, Billy refuses to kill it. He caught him and he didn't want to kill him. Ruben gets angry and decides that he will kill him himself. He grabs Billy's ax and heads towards the coon..