Compare And Contrast Where The Red Corn Grows

Victoria

The book Where the Red Fern Grows was written by Wilson, Rawls published in 1961 by Doubleday. Thirteen years later in 1974 a movie based on the book was released. Norman Tokar, the director of the film made sure that the movie had as many similarities to the book as possible while fitting in the 97 minute time range. This story is about a 12 year old boy named who lives in the Ozarks. Billy is completely satisfied with his life other than not having the one thing he has ever wanted, Red-Bone Coonhounds. Billy is more than determined to earn the money that his family doesn’t have, to afford these pups. After 2 long years of doing everything in his power to achieve his lifelong dream he finally gets his pups and nearly instantly

I saw the gleaming metal of the gold cup in his hand. After a short speech, he handed it to me, saying, "Son, this makes me very proud. It's a great honor to present you with this championship cup."” (Rawls, pg 111-112) This major difference in the movie didn’t compare to my satisfaction level in the book because in both the book and film we saw how hard Billy worked and in the movie it was a let down for the coon hunting championship to result this way. One last part of the plot that I think should have been included in the movie to match the book was when Little Ann falls into the icy river and nearly drowns. “Old Dan, a more powerful dog than Little Ann, had made his leap. Little Ann had not made it. Her small feet had probably slipped on the slick ice and she had fallen into the icy waters.” (Rawls, pg 60) This scene in the book contributes to the reader's understanding of the connection and love Billy has with/for his dogs as they do with him. This also builds onto Billy’s character showing that he is willing to risk his life to save something/someone that he loves, in this case being Little Ann. The book had more major events in the plot making it’s plot a lot more thicker and interesting compared to the

When watching the movie I noticed that Billy only had two sisters in the movie differing to how the book Billy had three. “I was well repaid by the love and adoration I saw in the wide blue eyes of my three little sisters.” (Rawls, pg 14)This might not seem like a major difference because it’s only excluding one character but I feel that it is because it affects other parts of the movie. An example of this is that if there was a beauty contest and a silver cup that Billy had won the older sisters would be given the silver cup to share and the gold one to the younger sister. The whole beauty contest may have been excluded for this reason. This would have made the movie better because it would have been more realistic because in the year it takes place it was common to have large families. In the movie there was another flaw that I was able to point out being that Samie the cats’ character was excluded from the story. This affected the story greatly because in the book there were a few small events missing in the movie because of the absence of the character. One of these events was how in the book Billy was given three small steel traps by his dad which Samie later gets trapped in by accident. “The next morning I started trapping around the barn. The first thing I caught was Samie, our house cat. If this didn't cause a commotion! I didn't intend to catch him. I was trying to catch