Where the red fern grows
(DVD Video)

Classroom edition DVD features include: Scene selection correlated with book chapters - Printable educator's guide - Clips with on-screen activities - Web links to additional Internet resources - Interactive writing activities - Bonus interview with Sophie Rawls, the widow of author Wilson Rawls.

Set in the wilds of the Ozarks during the Great Depression, this award-winning story describes the adventures of Billy Coleman and his loyal dogs, Old Dan and Little Ann. Dan and Ann teach Billy about loyalty, courage and perseverance. Billy works hard to save up enough money to buy the pair of redbone hound pups and trains them to be the top hunting dogs in the valley. Billy almost decides to give up hunting, however, when he is present at a hunting expedition that ends in another boy's death. At Grandpa's insistence, Billy enters the dogs in a championship hunting competition. On the final night of the contest, the dogs abandon three coons in a tree to find Grandpa, who is seriously hurt. To Billy's surprise and delight, the winner of the contest concedes the trophy and prize money to Billy and his dedicated dogs. Back at home, their lives take a tragic turn when Billy and the dogs encounter a mountain lion in the woods. The cougar kills Dan, and Ann later dies of a broken heart. Billy buries the dogs next to each other. As Billy visits the gravesite, he discovers a mythical red fern between the graves, as in the Cherokee myth of the two children who could not bear to be separated after their deaths.

4-8.

DVD.

Closed-captioned.