Do you remember your favorite book from childhood?

I have read so many books in my life, I had to think all morning of a book I may have read back in elementary school. Then it hit me, “Where The Red Fern Grows”.

I grew up in rural towns in Missouri in the 1970s. To my knowledge, the only banned book in our schools was the Bible. A few schools I went to the Principal had them in his office for the teachers to use.

The book, “Where The Red Fern Grows” was based in the Ozarks and my teacher really played that up. I think I was in 3rd grade when the teacher assigned the book. I remember being excited because, in my educational journey thus far, the only famous Missourians were Harry Truman, Samuel “Mark Twain” Clemens and Jesse James (IYKYK). (As I got older I learned of many others such as Walt Disney).

This was the first book I had read that dealt with death. I was 8 years old and had already been to quite a few funerals, a grandfather, 2 great-grandfathers, 1 great-grandmother and 1 great-uncle. I had also attended funerals of friends of my parents or aunts and uncles who were KIA in Vietnam. So, to me, the topic of death was not a mystery or a scary thing.

I remember some parents being very upset with the book because of death and one boy calling another boy “a little chickens**t” but I can’t say that I recall that. I remember watching the movie on TV and discussing it in school.

I learned how to get lost in a book reading this one. Your whole world exists in those pages and you can’t stop reading and simply no moving for hours. And you can picture every scene in that book. Even now, at the caboose car of my 50s, I can picture the woods where he hunted, and the porch steps…and the dang red fern growing up between the graves.

I may have just shed a few tears writing that!

Ok, I ordered a copy, it will be here Friday. It’s OK, I have plenty of Kleenex.