Adult Billy rescues a stray coonhound from a neighborhood dogfight and takes it home to recover for the night.

Young Billy develops an overwhelming obsession with owning two coonhound pups and cannot eat or sleep from wanting them.

Billy discovers a magazine ad for coonhound pups and spends two years earning $50, which he saves in a baking powder can.

Billy brings his hard-earned $50 to his grandfather, who is moved to tears of pride by his grandson's extraordinary tenacity.

Billy secretly packs a bag in the night and sets out alone on foot through the hills to collect his puppies from the Tahlequah freight depot.

Billy sees his puppies for the first time at the depot and breaks into tears, kneeling down to bury his face between their wiggling bodies.

Billy names his dogs Old Dan and Little Ann after spotting those names carved inside a heart on a tree at the fishermen's camp.

Old Dan and Little Ann tree their first raccoon in the largest sycamore in the bottoms, and Billy promises to chop the tree down himself.

After two days of chopping with blistered hands, Billy nearly gives up until a sudden wind blows the giant sycamore down and the dogs take the raccoon.

Billy saves Little Ann from drowning under river ice by fashioning a hook from his lantern handle and wading in chest-deep to drag her out.

During the ghost coon hunt, Rubin Pritchard trips on a stick and falls on an ax blade, dying from his wound while Billy watches helplessly.

Grandfather reveals he has secretly kept track of Billy's hides and entered him in a championship raccoon hunt competition.

Old Dan and Little Ann survive a blizzard by circling their treed raccoon all night to keep from freezing, securing Billy's championship victory.

Old Dan dies from wounds suffered in a mountain lion attack, and Little Ann loses her will to live and dies at his grave.

A red fern is found growing between the dogs' graves, and the family takes it as a sacred sign to leave the Ozarks and seek a better life.

Where the Red Fern Grows follows Billy Colman, a boy growing up poor in the Oklahoma Ozarks who spends two years saving money to buy two coonhound pups he names Old Dan and Little Ann. After a dangerous solo journey to collect them, Billy trains his dogs and earns a reputation as the best hunter in the area through countless nightly hunts. A tragic confrontation with a neighbor boy and a grueling championship hunt in a blizzard test Billy and his dogs to their limits, but they emerge victorious. The joy of winning is eventually shattered when a mountain lion attack leaves Old Dan mortally wounded, and Little Ann dies of grief at his grave. The discovery of a sacred red fern growing between their graves transforms the loss into a sign of hope, giving the family the will to leave the Ozarks and seek a better life.

Billy's journey from longing for hounds to losing them and finding meaning in their sacrifice.

Billy's father gives him three steel traps to try to ease his obsession with owning coonhounds.

Billy tries to run away from home over his longing for hounds but turns back alone in the dark at the sound of a timber wolf's howl.

Grandfather agrees to write the Kentucky kennel on Billy's behalf and warns him not to tell Papa, who has his eye on a new mule.

The letter from the Kentucky kennel arrives confirming the dogs are available and that the price has dropped five dollars.

Billy sees his own reflection in a store mirror for the first time and realizes how out of place he looks to city people.

A group of town boys surround and beat Billy in the street until a marshal breaks up the fight and buys Billy his very first soda pop.

Billy returns home to a warm welcome and gives his family the gifts he bought with his extra $10, and they forgive him for leaving without warning.

Billy's sisters help him build a doghouse and Papa crafts rough leather collars, with Billy carving the dogs' names into the leather.

Grandfather teaches Billy a tin-trap trick to catch a raccoon for training; Papa kills it and tells Billy to remove all the other traps as unsportsmanlike.

Billy trains Old Dan and Little Ann by dragging a raccoon hide through woods, across rivers, and over rocks to simulate a real trail.

Old Dan refuses to go hunting when Little Ann cuts her paw, instead curling up outside the corn crib where she is locked inside.

Old Dan climbs halfway up the inside of a hollow tree while trailing a raccoon and Billy must climb in the same way to force him back out.

Billy, Papa, and Grandfather set out together in Grandfather's buggy for the championship raccoon hunt competition.

Little Ann outlasts every other contestant in the hound beauty pageant and wins first place, earning a small silver cup.

Billy visits his dogs' graves one final time to say goodbye before his family drives away from the Ozarks forever.

While Billy's main plot is driven by grand ambitions and dramatic events, the texture of his story is built from smaller but equally significant moments. From the first traps his father gave him to the collar-carving and doghouse-building that welcomed his new pups home, each step showed Billy growing into a capable young hunter. His relationship with Old Dan and Little Ann deepened through day-to-day hunting challenges that revealed the dogs' distinct personalities and fierce loyalty to each other. The championship hunt itself unfolded in stages, beginning with a buggy ride shared by three generations and a beauty pageant won by Little Ann, before culminating in the final victory. The pool ends where Billy stands at the dogs' graves on the morning the family departs, marking the quiet, private goodbye that closes his childhood.

The supporting moments and everyday challenges that shaped Billy's character and his bond with the dogs.

Billy finds a sportsman's magazine left by fishermen advertising coonhound pups and immediately hatches a detailed plan to earn the money.

Billy cries while counting his saved money and thanks God in prayer, crediting divine help with giving him the courage and determination to earn it.

Billy passes a schoolhouse in Tahlequah and a group of children taunt him as a hillbilly, leaving him sad and confused about why city people keep laughing at him.

Billy spends his extra $10 in a Tahlequah shop on new overalls for his father, fabric for his mother, and candy for his sisters, refusing to buy shoes for himself.

A mountain lion circles Robber's Cave all night while Billy and his new pups sleep inside, kept at bay only by the fire Billy keeps stoked.

Billy tells his family about his journey through town, and Papa urges him to think of it differently, voicing the family's hope to move there one day.

Grandfather fashions a scarecrow from sticks, wire, and old clothes to keep the raccoon treed so Billy can go home to eat and sleep.

Billy discovers Old Dan slept the whole night at the base of the treed raccoon, and Mama declares her full support for the hunt for the first time.

Billy climbs the ghost coon's tree and looks into the animal's frightened eyes, deciding to show it mercy rather than kill it.

Billy brings flowers to Rubin Pritchard's grave and watches Mrs. Pritchard quietly straighten them, finally feeling some release from his guilt.

Billy notices for the first time that his mother is pregnant, realizing how completely absorbed he has been in hunting to have missed it.

Papa fires his gun into the blizzard at Billy's urging and Little Ann hears the shot, leading the lost group through the storm to the frozen Old Dan.

Grandfather is found unconscious in the cane after twisting his ankle badly, and the group builds a fire around him to wait out the storm.

Billy tells Mama he no longer believes in prayer after losing his dogs, and Papa explains that their deaths may have been the reason the whole family can now stay together.

Adult Billy reflects by his fireplace that he never returned to the Ozarks but still believes in his heart that the red fern grows on his dogs' graves.

Billy's story is marked not just by action but by the quiet moments that changed how he understood himself, his faith, and his place in the world. A discarded magazine sparked his entire quest, and a prayer of gratitude over a tin can of coins showed the depth of his belief. In town, he confronted a version of the world that mocked him, yet chose generosity over resentment by spending his last dollars on gifts for his family. Out in the woods, acts of mercy, grief, and steadfast loyalty pushed Billy toward an emotional maturity beyond his years. By the end, the deaths of his dogs forced a reckoning with faith itself, and it is only the red fern and his father's quiet words that begin to restore what was lost.

The key decisions, discoveries, and emotional shifts that defined Billy's coming-of-age.

Wilson Rawls

Novel

Fiction

Guide