<P> Billy's grandfather enters him into a championship coon hunt, putting him against experienced hunters and the finest dogs in the country . Before it starts, he enters Little Ann into a conformation contest, where she wins the silver cup . On the fourth night of the hunt, Old Dan and Little Ann tree three raccoons, making it to the final round . The sixth night, they tree one before a blizzard hits . Billy, his father, grandfather, and the judge lose sight of the dogs . When they finally find them, Billy's grandfather sprains his ankle . They build a fire, and when Billy's father chops down a tree, three raccoons jump out . Old Dan and Little Ann take two of them down, and chase the third to another tree . In the morning, the hunters find them covered with ice circling the tree . That raccoon wins them the championship, gold cup, and $300 of jackpot money . </P> <P> One night Old Dan and Little Ann tree a mountain lion, and it attacks . Billy enters the fight with his axe, hoping to save his dogs, but they end up having to save him . Eventually, they kill the mountain lion, but Old Dan is badly wounded, and Billy finds his intestines in a bush . He dies late that night . Billy is heartbroken, and Little Ann loses the will to live, stops eating, and dies of grief a few days later on Old Dan's grave . Billy's father tries to tell him that it is all for the best, because with the money they received from winning the championship hunt, they can move to town . He goes to visit Old Dan and Little Ann's graves and finds a giant red fern between them . According to Native American legend, only an angel can plant one . He feels ready to move on knowing that his dogs are always going to be remembered . </P> <P> The novel was made into a 1974 film starring Stewart Petersen, James Whitmore, Beverly Garland, and Jack Ging . It was followed by a sequel in 1992, which starred Wilford Brimley, Chad McQueen, Lisa Whelchel, and Karen Carlson . The film was remade in 2003 and starred Joseph Ashton, Dabney Coleman, Ned Beatty and Dave Matthews . </P> <P> In a talk given to a group of schoolteachers, Wilson Rawls related how he wrote the first version of the novel (along with five full novels, and hundreds of short stories and novelettes) during the years that he worked on construction in Mexico and Idaho . He rolled the manuscripts up and saved them in a trunk at his parents' home . When he met his fiancée, Sophie, he did not want her to know about his failed dreams of becoming a writer, so about a week before he got married he visited his parents and burned all his manuscripts . He then returned to Idaho and married Sophie . About three months later, he confessed to his wife that he had burned all his manuscripts and had always dreamed of being a writer . She encouraged him to rewrite one of his stories . He quit his job and wrote the novel in just three weeks . He said, "I had it memorized ." He would not let her read it until it was finished . He said, "I finished it on a Friday . I gave it to her Saturday morning and I went to town . I stayed in town all day . I knew she had time to read it . I called her on the phone . I just knew she was going to laugh at that writing...but when I called on the phone, she said,' You get back out here to the house, I want to talk to you...this is the most wonderful dog and boy story I've ever heard in my life ."' She encouraged him to lengthen the story, because she felt it was too short to be a novel but too long to be a short story . He went to work on lengthening the manuscript . He wrote it longhand with no punctuation . She then typed it up and submitted it to the Saturday Evening Post . </P>

When was where the red fern grows made
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