Book Report #2 - Where the Red Fern Grows

Kara's latest writing assignment:

Where The Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls is about a boy who really wants two hunting dogs. Unfortunately, they cost fifty dollars! The boy, Billy Colman, has to work for two years before he has enough money to buy himself two little hunting pups. When he gets them, he works and works to train them to be great hunting hounds.

Billy picked blackberries and things like that to sell to fishermen. He kept his money in a large can and eventually earned fifty dollars. He then went to town to buy two hound pups. With his grandpa’s help, he trapped a raccoon and used its hide to train his pups, who he named Old Dan and Little Ann. When his pups finished training, they hunted and hunted until they had so many raccoon hides, Billy’s grandpa entered him in the Championship Coon Hunt. Billy and his pups won and went home to a very happy family. They kept hunting, until, finally, his dogs caught a mountain lion. They killed it eventually, but Old Dan had a wound that was fatal later. Little Ann then lost the will to live and died. Billy’s parents were happy, though, since he had earned enough money with his raccoon hides and his prize money from the Championship Coon Hunt to move to a nice house.

I enjoyed this book, especially the middle part, but I didn’t like the ending. It’s inevitable that the dogs would have died eventually, but I would have preferred if it ended without both dogs dying a sad death. However, the beginning was good—it showed how much determination Billy really needed—and the middle was great. It was so happy, and the hunts were really interesting. Besides the ending, I really liked the book.