Rawls, (Woodrow) Wilson 1913-1984

views updated

RAWLS, (Woodrow) Wilson 1913-1984

PERSONAL: Born September 24, 1913, in Scraper, OK; died of cancer, December 16, 1984, in Marshfield, WI; son of Minzy O. and Winnie (Hatfield) Rawls; married Sophie Ann Styczinski (budget analyst for Atomic Energy Commission), August 23, 1958. Education: Attended schools in Oklahoma. Religion: Presbyterian.

CAREER: Became itinerant carpenter in teens and worked in Mexico, in South America, on the Alcan Highway in Alaska, on five of the major dam projects in the United States, in West Coast shipyards, for the Navy in Oregon, and for a lumber company in British Columbia. Writer, beginning 1959. Lecturer at numerous schools, colleges, and universities in many states. Speaker at educational conventions.

MEMBER: Authors Guild, Authors League of America, Idaho Parent-Teacher Association (honorary life member).

AWARDS, HONORS: Sequoyah Children's Book Award, Oklahoma Library Association, 1979, William Allen White Children's Book Award, Emporia State University, 1979, golden Archer Award, University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, 1980, Maud Hart Lovelace Book Award, Friends of the Minnesota Valley Regional Library, 1980, and California Young Reader Medal Award, California Reading Association, California Library Association, California Media and Library Educators Association, and California Association of

Teachers of English, Children's Book Award for the Older Child, North Dakota, all 1981, all for Summer of the Monkeys; Evansville Book Award—Division III, Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corporation, 1979, Michigan Young Readers Award—Division II, Michigan Council of Teachers of English, 1980, Children's Book Award for the Older Child, North Dakota, 1981, Twelfth Annual Children's Book Award, Massachusetts, 1987, and Great Stone Face Award, New Hampshire, 1988, all for Where the Red Fern Grows.

WRITINGS:

Where the Red Fern Grows: The Story of Two Dogs and a Boy, Doubleday (Garden City, NY), 1961, published as Where the Red Fern Grows: And Related Readings, McDougal Littell (Boston, MA), 1996, published as Where the Red Fern Grows: The Story of Two Dogs and a Boy: With Connections, Holt, Rinehart, & Winston (Austin, TX), 2000.

Summer of the Monkeys, Doubleday (Garden City, NY), 1976.

Dreams Can Come True (sound recording), Reading Tree Productions (Springfield, MA), 1993.

The Wilson Rawls collection, which includes literary awards, taped interviews, manuscripts, and other materials, is maintained by the Archives and Collections Department of the Cherokee National Museum, Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Summer of the Monkeys has been published in French and German.

ADAPTATIONS: Where the Red Fern Grows was adapted for film by Doty-Dayton Productions, narrated by the author, 1974, and has been recorded on audio-cassette by Recorded Books, 1994, and Listening Library, 1994. Summer of the Monkeys was adapted for film by Disney Educational Productions, 1999.

SIDELIGHTS: Wilson Rawls was so critical of his own writing that he destroyed his first five manuscripts, yet his novel Where the Red Fern Grows eventually became a classic of children's literature. He was born on the Cherokee Nation land in northeastern Oklahoma, where his mother, who was descended from the tribe, owned land on the Illinois River. Life on this farm with his many siblings formed the substance of his later fiction. As school was not available on a regular basis, the Rawls children were mostly educated by their mother. Rawls's interest in reading was sparked by his mother's reading Jack London's adventure story Call of the Wild. He later credited this book, which he read repeatedly, as the source of his inspiration to become a writer.

Coming of age during the Great Depression, Rawls left home at the age of sixteen and began drifting about the country looking for work. As he traveled he also wrote, storing his manuscripts in a trunk at the family's home in Albuquerque when he visited there. Eventually, he found work at the Atomic Energy Commission's site in the Arco desert in Idaho. There he met Sophie Styczinski, a budget analyst who became his wife. She was a college graduate, and Wilson felt somewhat embarrassed about his lack of formal learning. His embarrassment drove him to burn his unpublished works. Later, he told her what he had done, and of his continuing desire to be a writer. She not only encouraged him, but helped him to edit his work. A series of stories, "The Hounds of Youth," was published in the Saturday Evening Post, and in 1961, the work was adapted into book form as Where the Red Fern Grows.

Where the Red Fern Grows is largely autobiographical. The protagonist, Billy Colman, thinks back to his impoverished boyhood. Billy wished for some hounds, and worked persistently to save enough money to buy a pair of pups. He trains them to be prize-winning hunting dogs, and the three of them share numerous adventures. Both dogs lose their lives protecting their master from a mountain lion. The book was favorably reviewed, but sold few copies until several years after its publication. At that time, Rawls accepted an invitation to speak at a teachers' workshop. His remarks about his book impressed the teachers there that they read the novel, and urged their students to do so, too. Where the Red Fern Grows then enjoyed a huge groundswell in popularity. By 1974, it had even been adapted as a film.

Rawls's next book was more fanciful. Summer of the Monkeys is set in the early years of the twentieth century and tells the tale of a Oklahoma teenager, Jay Berry Lee, who stumbles upon a group of monkeys who have escaped from the circus. Lured by a reward, the teenager resolves to capture the monkeys, but this proves difficult to do. He finally captures the monkeys, but instead of buying himself a horse with the reward as he had planned, Lee gets far more satisfaction spending the money for an operation on his sister's leg.

Summer of the Monkeys was also well received, but it was as a speaker to teachers and students that Rawls was perhaps most influential. He eventually visited some two thousand schools in twenty-two states. He always brought his books along and emphasized that he had created the stories even without understanding proper grammar and spelling. "Children are always asking me what advice I can give them on trying to be a writer," Rawls once told CA, [and] "I always tell them to do a lot of reading, read and study creative writing, then start writing and keep writing. Someday they will make it if they don't give up."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Albuquerque Tribune (Albuquerque, NM), January 4, 1999, Jan Jonas, "Leaving His Mark," p. C1.

Best Sellers, June 1, 1961.

Booklist, February 15, 1992, review of Summer of the Monkeys, p. 1101; August, 1995, Nancy McCray, review of audio version of Where the Red Fern Grows, p. 1966; March 15, 1996, Barbara Baskin, review of audio version of Where the Red Fern Grows, p. 1306; April 15, 2000, Debra McLeod, review of movie version of Summer of the Monkeys, p. 1158.

Chicago Tribune, June 4, 1961.

Children's Literature in Education, June, 1995, review of Where the Red Fern Grows, pp. 135-150.

Deseret News, February 16, 1974.

Horn Book, January, 1996, Kristi Beavin, review of audio version of Where the Red Fern Grows, pp. 105-108.

Idaho Falls Post-Register, March 17, 1974.

Library Journal, February 1, 1961, pp. 612-613.

Milwaukee Journal, June 25, 1978.

Salt Lake Tribune, April 7, 1974.

School Library Journal, July, 1994, Penny Peck, review of Dreams Can Come True, p. 68; June, 1995, Linda W. Braun, review of Where the Red Fern Grows, p. 71; November, 1996, Linda W. Braun, review of Where the Red Fern Grows, p. 60.

Tulsa Daily World (Tulsa, OK), April 15, 1976.

Voice of Youth Advocates, October 1992, Jody McCoy, review of Summer of the Monkeys, p. 230.

Yakima Herald-Republic (Yakima, WA), March 24, 1974.