Where the Red Fern Grows (SparkNotes Literature Guide)

By SparkNotes

Where the Red Fern Grows (SparkNotes Literature Guide) by Wilson Rawls
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• Language: English
• Publisher: SparkNotes
• Release date: Aug 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781411478305

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Cover of SparkNotes Guide to Where the Red Fern Grows by SparkNotes Editors

Where the Red Fern Grows

Wilson Rawls

© 2003, 2007 by Spark Publishing

This Spark Publishing edition 2014 by SparkNotes LLC, an Affiliate of Barnes & Noble

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ISBN-13: 978-1-4114-7830-5

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Contents

Context

Summary

Characters

Chapters 1-6

Chapters 7-9

Chapters 10-11

Chapters 12-13

Chapters 14-18

Chapters 19-20

Analysis

Study Questions

Review & Resources

Context

Wilson Rawls was born in the Ozark Mountains, which spread out over eastern Oklahoma and Western Arkansas, on September 24, 1913. Like his character Billy, Rawls spent a lot of time during his childhood exploring the nearby hills, accompanied by his hound. He loved to tell hound stories, even though he did not read a proper book until he was in high school. When he grew up, it was only natural for him to write novels. At one point he threw away his manuscripts, but his wife made him write them out again. Rawls was ashamed because he had a poor command of grammar, but his wife edited the books, and both Where the Red Fern Grows (1961) and The Summer of the Monkeys (1976) became great successes. Rawls died in 1984, in Idaho Falls, Idaho.

Where the Red Fern Grows concerns a boy who buys and trains a pair of coonhounds. (Coon is short for raccoon.) Raccoons are considered pests by farmers, because they steal food; but they are also very clever creatures, and so it became a sport to train hound dogs to catch raccoons. Coon hunting is done at night because raccoons are nocturnal--they sleep during the day and move around at night. The dogs enter