This paper is about the book Where the Red Fern Grows and also about the author, Wilson Rawls.

Wilson Rawls was born in the Oklahoma Ozarks on a small farm. His youth was spent in the Cherokee nation, roaming the hills and river bottoms with his only companion, an old blue tick hound. The small town that he grew up in did not have a school so Wilson's mother taught him and his siblings to the best of her ability. She made it a practice to read to them. He thought that all stories were "girl stories" until his mother read Jack London's Call of the Wild to them. After she read it to all of the children she gave it to Wilson and that became his treasure and he read it at every chance h…