Search - Where the Red Fern Grows

SPOILER ALERT

I started reading this book to see if it would be a good one to read with a dog-loving foreign student in junior high, whom I am tutoring. At first it seemed like the perfect choice...but then I had a look at the last few chapters and changed my mind. Good "literature" it probably is, but there is a description of the killing of one of the boy's dogs that is downright gruesome. It could have been handled in a much less graphic way.

In my opinion, this book does not belong in the children's section of the library. I dislike the modern penchant for having kids' stories end sadly, anyway, though I would not demand that every story end "happily ever after." Nevertheless, the graphic brutality in "Red Fern" is over the top.

Sure, kids nowadays are exposed to hundreds of gruesome killings, blowings-up, and so on, when they watch TV, and they may kill and blow people up themselves in video games, but there is a difference between animated games and a story that draws you in so that you identify with and sympathize with the characters.

Anyone considering having his/her child read this book should check out the part about the dogs' deaths first and make a decision based on how their child might react to the story. I would keep it from mine as long as I could.

It was sad, but I loved it! Fascinating descriptions of life in the Ozarks, adventures, miracles... Ages 11 and up.

I remember reading this in sixth grade, and the memory has stayed with me all these years. It is a classic that every child should read. A beautiful story of love that will touch anyone who reads it.