WHERE THE RED FERN GROWS

• by Wilson Rawls
• [rated by PBS readers as #31]
• 282 pages

Here we go again with the surprises. Not huge, but still surprising.

This is an absolute classic book for young adults. They are obviously younger adults than when I was a young adult! There is a true dividing line. When I mention it to friends without kids, they have never heard of it and when I mention it to friends with kids, they all know it.

Here’s my question. And half way through, I haven’t answered it yet. Why is a book that is always mentioned with a warning to bring your hankie, that it is clearly a story of a boy with a dog and the dog dies, a book that is this beloved?

It is taking me years longer (and by years, I am of course greatly exaggerating!) to slog through this than it did to read Crime & Punishment.

Though it is a young adult book and those have been a truly happy surprise for me throughout this project, I am just not in any hurry to get to the dead dog! Now I know that the dog isn’t real and doesn’t really die! But who wants to get there?

Plus, I must admit that a little kid who dreams of nothing but getting two hounds and going coon hunting is not the universal theme of my dreams. I am trying to love it, but coon pelts just don’t do it for me.

I will say, however, that the scene of this little boy who lives in the country and comes into a town for the first time to pick up his dogs is one that I will always remember. Things like him looking into a store shop window and seeing his reflection for the first time. Wow. I will remember that.

Ah well. I must keep reading until the dog dies and then I can move into the next challenge!

DONE.

I can’t believe how much I put this book off. It took me longer to read a young adult book with under 300 pages than it took me to read Crime & Punishment!

It was a combination of two things. The first was the people who said bring your hanky when you read that one. Then that was echoed with a phrase early in the book where the boy, the main character and narrator, basically as much as says that one of his dogs dies to save him.

Then we have the heartwarming Atticus Finch-like family that is too Hallmark for Hallmark. Which is okay – that’s the book it is, no judgment – but the subject is dogs who kill raccoons for Billy, the little boy. Somehow the family values and the bloodlust make strange bedfellows for this girl.

But it got comical the way I put it off. I had a lot of appointments on zoom the last week and I only read it when I was at my desk and knew I had five minutes or less to read!

In the end, the dogs die and I can see how people remember the book for those images and that elemental story. The last part, after the death, the messages of God needed and wanted this and little kid just has to get it plus the little boy being scolded by his mom for crying on the second day. It was time for him to be a little man, that kind of thing. Hm.

But ultimately, this still fits in my “every book is a surprise” category. One of the most delightful discoveries for me in all this is the young adult books. I have loved them hugely. And now this one? Not so much.

I expect that I will soon forget a bunch of this book. The piles of skinned coon hides will drift back into my memory. That will be a good day!

Well-written and in my view, still not a huge recommend.