Raising Readers: Where the Red Fern Grows

Parents who encourage and successfully develop children who read see greater school success and satisfaction.  This series reviews various examples of children’s literature and provides insights for parents to discuss with their children.   Reading and sharing the wonderful stories available to children sends a message that reading is important, creates positive “shared experiences” for families, and helps parents exert a subtle influence on their children’s development.

This story opens with Billy Coleman, now an adult, remembering back to a time when he was ten years old and purchased two puppies that he trained to hunt.  The story is told as a memory of that time in his life. 

Their family is very poor and farms the land in the Ozark Mountains as best they can.  Billy wants two hunting hounds very badly, but the family can’t afford the purchase.  Billy’s father, however, gives him three traps and teaches Billy how to use them.  Over the next two years, Billy saves the money he makes from trapping and other jobs and is finally able to purchase his hounds.  The responsibility of training and caring for his hounds takes center stage in Billy’s ongoing development toward adulthood.

The themes of determination, love and maturity are explored as Billy slowly comes of age.  A particularly poignant section is when Billy is goaded into a challenge hunt by two brothers who come from the very mean Pritchard family.  Everyone dislikes them as they are always looking to cause trouble.  During the course of the hunt, the older brother is tragically killed, and Billy has to contemplate the death of someone his own age that had always been “ornery” to him.  After much conflicted thought, Billy quietly goes to the grave and leaves flowers.  From a distance, he sees the boy’s mother come out to the grave, and break down in tears at his anonymous gift. 

The end of the story is bittersweet.  The money that Billy and his family have earned and saved from farming and hunting allows them to move out of the mountains and into a nearby town where the family will have a much better life and children can go to school.  However, Billy’s dogs have died from a separate (and intense) adventure and are left behind – but not forgotten.  Depending on reading level, this book is for 12 year olds and up.

Raising Readers is written by Steve Arnold of Club Z! In-Home Tutoring Services.  He can be reached at 610.831.5101 or ChesMontClubZ@gmail.com.  Find out more about Club Z! In-Home Tutoring at www.clubztutoring.com/ChesMont.