Old Yeller

     Old Yeller (1956), by Frank Gipson, is one of those tearjerker dog stories which would make life miserable if they didn't exist. It was a Newbery Honor book, and made into a movie by Disney the next year.

     This story takes place in the West Texas community of Salt Lick in the late 1860's, as best our narrator, Travis Coates, can remember. The men in the community decide to start a cattle drive to Abilene, six hundred miles north, in order to get some money. So fourteen-year-old Travis is left to take care of his mother and rock-throwing five-year-old brother, Little Arliss, as best he can until the men get back in fall. That goes well enough, until one day a very ugly dingy-yellowish dog with no tail and one ear steals the last bit of ham out of the smokehouse. Arliss adopts the dog, much to Travis's displeasure. And he also steals chicken eggs, according to Lisbeth Searcy, their pretty neighbor.
     However, Old Yeller scares off a pair of dueling bulls that threatened to smash up the Coates cabin, and then he saves Little Arliss from a wild bear. That endears Travis to both Yeller and Arliss, and from there on he discovers how smart and useful the dog can be. Which is why it's such a worry when a man comes along claiming that he owns Yeller. But on seeing how much Travis and Arliss love/need the dog - having been a boy himself, and likely with a boyhood dog of his own - the man (a bachelor) agrees to let them keep the dog in exchange for one of Mama's home-cooked meals. He also prominently foreshadows (without much subtlety) the oncoming plague of hydrophobia.
     Yeller then saves Travis from a group of angry wild hogs, getting all slashed to bits, and barely hanging on to life. Just when he's about healed, though, two cows get hydrophobia and have to be shot. (And burned, so the wolves and buzzards won't spread the infection.) Just after Mama and Lisbeth finish burning the second cow, they're attacked by a mad gray wolf, only to be saved by Yeller. After some time, Papa and the rest of the men come back from the cattle drive, and Lisbeth gives Travis a puppy, parents Yeller and her dog Miss Prissy(who was herself a puppy of Bell, the Coates' previous dog), and Travis decides to teach the puppy and Little Arliss how to hunt squirrels.

     Lots of people would consider this one a prime candidate for Saddest Ending Ever Written, but in my opinion Where the Red Fern Grows, by Wilson Rawls, is far worse(and by that I mean, while still horribly sad, much more worthwhile and beautiful). It's noble that Yeller dies protecting his family, and the tension of the hydrophobic cows is strong, but this just isn't that special a story. There is a lot of this-is-how-things-were-done-on-the-frontier-at-that-time description of hunting and trapping techniques, which some boys would likely love(like my brothers). I would have preferred more societal/historical details about the setting, if it were me. Travis is a frustrating narrator, because, no matter how responsible, the attitudes of most early teen boys are insufferable by nature(I'm sure I was, too). He was still easier to deal with than Katniss, though. I think it's because of the movie that this is considered such a classic.

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The Story of Ferdinand

     The Story of Ferdinand (New York, Viking, 1938), by Munro Leaf and illustrated by Robert Lawson, is one of my favorite picture books of all time.

     Once upon a time, on a farm somewhere in Spain, there was a little bull born named Ferdinand. All the other little bulls he lived with in their pasture would run and jump and butt their heads together - but not Ferdinand. Instead, he liked to just sit quietly and smell the flowers, watching the world go by under his favorite cork tree. His mother, a cow, was worried about him; because little bulls do not usually watch the world go by. But Ferdinand explained that he wasn't lonesome and he was having a good time, and because she was an understanding mother (even if she was only a cow) she let him be.
     All young bulls, no matter what their personality or behavioral quirks, must grow, and so Ferdinand also grew to be a big, strong, fearsome animal. Fearsome in appearance, that is - he still loved to sit and smell the flowers. All the other bulls would fight each other all day long, because they wanted to be one of the bulls chosen to be in the big bull fights in Madrid. But Ferdinand just watched, like always.
     One day five men in very funny hats came down for Madrid to select which bulls would be chosen as the biggest, roughest, and fastest one of them all. So all the other bulls were butting each other and sticking each other with their sharp horns. They snorted and bucked and leaped and jumped so that the men would think they were very very strong and fierce and pick them. Ferdinand knew they would never pick him, and he didn't care, so what was the point of showing off? He walked to his favorite cork tree and sat down - right on A BEE. Bees do not enjoy being sat on. So this one stung Ferdinand, right on the rump. And that HURT! So Ferdinand rose up with a snort, and he ran around puffing and snorting, butting and pawing the ground as if he were crazy. The five men in the funny hats were delighted - this must be the bull for the trip to Madrid!
     So they took him away in a funny-looking cart, and there was a great celebration in Madrid. (Mr. Ernest Hemingway writes a lot about it in his novel The Sun Also Rises.) Flags were flying, bands were playing, and (best of all for Ferdinand) all the ladies were wearing pretty-smelling flowers in their hair. There was a parade into the bullring - first came the Banderilleros with long pointy sticks to poke the bull and make him mad. And next came the Picadores on skinny, horses, who carried long sharp spears to jab the bull with and make him even madder. Finally came the Matador, who was very vain (for the ladies all thought he was quite handsome) and he had a red cape and a sword, and he was supposed to stick them into the bull last of all. And then after that came the bull. You know who that was, right? Yes, that's right - it was Ferdinand.
     All the people in the crowd called him Ferdinand the Fierce and all the Banderilleros were afraid of him, and all the Picadores were afraid of him, and the Matador was scared stiff. Ferdinand ran into the middle of the ring, and everyone in the crowd cheered and clapped their hands, thinking that he would now act very fierce and scary and give them all a good show. But Ferdinand saw all the nice-smelling flowers the pretty ladies were wearing, and so he just sat down and smelled. This made the Banderilleros very mad, and it made the Picadores even madder, and the vain Matador was so mad he cried, because he couldn't show off with his fancy cape and sword.
     So they had to take Ferdinand home, since he wouldn't fight. And for all I know, he may be there under his favorite cork tree still, smelling the flowers.

     It would be hard to say how much I love this book. For one thing, fighting should only be done if it must (like if you are stung by a bee). Otherwise, it is much more interesting to watch all the other bulls in the pasture running and jumping and butting their heads together, because that is conflict, which is needed in a good story. And those come from long moments of sitting quietly and observing the world.

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The Giving Tree

      First, let me just point out that Shel Silverstein was one of the scariest-looking people on Earth. Anyway, he could write, though; even if most of his stuff is rather strange. But The Giving Tree(New York: Harper and Row, 1964) is one of the best picture books ever written, I'd say, because of the sacrificial love the tree displays.

     The plot is simple: There is a boy who climbs a tree and eats her apples, swings from her branches, carves messages into the bark of the trunk, etc. Eventually, though, he gets older, and then he carves a girl's name into the trunk, not spending as much time with the tree. This makes the tree lonely, but she still loves the boy. He says that he would like some money, and while the tree doesn't have any(being a tree, obviously), she suggests that the boy gather her apples and sell them in the market. So he climbs into her branches again, "and the tree was happy."
     Then the boy goes away again for a very long time. Then he comes back as a middle-aged man, and asks if the tree can help him get a house. (This doesn't make much sense if you think about it too long.) The tree has a house already - the woods - but she suggests that the boy cut off her branches and make a house out of them. (What kind of house can be made out of chopped-up tree branches, I've always sorta wondered.)
     He stays away for another very long time, returning as an old man seeking to get away from everything. So the tree says that he can cut off most of her trunk to use as a boat, if he wishes. (The picture shows that the trunk gets chopped off at the girl's name he'd marked all those years earlier, leading me to think for a long time that he had gotten married to the girl "Y.L." and then they divorced. But seeing how elderly the man is on writing this review, I think it's more likely that that girl died of some sickness.)
     After another long time, the tree is just a wizened stump, and the boy is now ancient and feeble. The tree apologizes that she has nothing left to give him, but the boy says that he is too old and weak to do anything except sit and rest. So the tree admits that stumps are very good for resting upon. "'Come, Boy, sit down. Sit down and rest.' So the Boy did. And the tree was happy."

     This book can be seen as a great depiction of the tree's selfless love, which is how I usually see it. Other people have complained that the relationship between the tree and the boy is abusive, which I can kind of see, too. The boy never thanks the tree or does anything for her; he just always takes. I guess it just depends on how you wanted to look at it. Either way, this is one of the most influential picture books of the twentieth century.

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