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#NerdyBookClub Retro Review: Old Yeller by Fred Gipson
One of the best things about elementary school for me was the chance to order Scholastic books. I was always allowed to order a couple of titles each time that little flyer was sent home. My parents said, “We’ll support your good habits but not your bad ones,” and reading was thankfully considered one of my good habits. What you see here is my Scholastic copy of Old Yeller that I’ve owned for more than forty years.
My favorite part of the elementary school day was when our teacher read aloud to us. In early grades I remember Make Way for Ducklings and The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. When we were a little older, we heard A Wrinkle in Time, Little House on the Prairie, and the book that became “my book,” Fred Gipson’s Old Yeller.
You might know that this is the story of a frontier boy and the trouble-making dog he grows to love. I read Old Yeller over and over and bragged to anyone who would listen that I’d gone through it more than twenty times. I read other dog books too: Jim Kjelgaards’s Big Red, Irish Red, and Outlaw Red; The Greyhound by Helen Griffiths; and Fred Gipson’s other books, Savage Sam and Hound Dog Man. But nothing got in my head the way Old Yeller did.
The language captured me first, followed by the story. For the sheer joy of it, go ahead and read aloud this passage where our eponymous dog protagonist is first described: “He was a big, ugly, slick-haired yeller dog. One short ear had been chewed clear off and his tail had been bobbed so close to his rump that there was hardly stub enough left to wag. But the most noticeable thing to me about him was how thin and starved looking he was, all but for his belly. His belly was swelled up as tight and round as a pumpkin.” Any description including the words ugly, rump, stub, belly, and swelled is bound to catch a boy’s attention.
Also enthralling to me were the scenes of animal violence in Old Yeller. How could I resist a story that includes this warning about javelina hogs?: “Make a bad shot and wound one so that he went to squealing, and you had the whole bunch after you, ready to eat you alive.” I’m not even sure I’d know a javelina hog if I saw one, but I am sure I never want to mess with such a creature because of what I read back then in Old Yeller. Or how about the scene where the narrator Travis is trampled by two enraged bulls?: “I sure thought I was a goner. The roaring of the bulls was right in my ears. The hot, reeking scent of their blood was in my nose. The bone-crushing weight of their hoofs was stomping all around and over me, churning up such a fog of dust that I couldn’t see a thing.” Throughout Old Yeller we see all manner of animals, frequently in inter-species combat, or battling Travis or his brother Arliss, and Old Yeller usually inserts himself into the fray and saves the day one way or another.
The tension of these elemental frontier conflicts is periodically offset by Travis’s sense of humor. For example, he describes his brother Little Arliss as “a screamer by nature. He’d scream when he was happy and scream when he was mad and a lot of times he’d scream just to hear himself make noise.”
Old Yeller is, of course, most famous for its ending, but I believe that’s more due to the movie than the book. This over-wrought screen moment was even satirized on Friends when Phoebe is startled by seeing the movie’s denouement for the first time after being told as a child that it ended happily.
In the book, Old Yeller’s demise is handled quickly in one understated sentence: “I stuck the muzzle of the gun against his head and pulled the trigger.” Oh, come on. Is it really a spoiler when anyone who picks up a dog book should know that it will end badly for the dog? That’s part of the genre. Old Yeller’s ending is an iconic moment in animal stories and, I believe, a valuable and important example of what Kelly Gallagher calls “imaginative rehearsal.” The power of that moment helped prepare me and I’m sure countless others to make hard decisions at personal expense and for the greater good of a community.
Why did Fred Gipson’s Old Yeller speak to me? Maybe because young readers need to see some version of themselves in the books they read. Although I did not have a dog of my own, reading Old Yeller showed me an older brother working hard and taking on responsibility, learning to choose his battles, and a courageous dog companion who doesn’t let unfair odds get in the way of tackling opponents or problems. Those were good lessons that I probably could not have articulated in elementary school but that are clear to me now.
When a boy learns his lessons from a “big, ugly, slick-haired yeller dog,” they tend to stick with him. If you haven’t read Old Yeller, or if it’s been a while, give that dog a chance. He’ll grow on you.
Gary Anderson is a high school English teacher in suburban Chicago. He is co-author (with Tony Romano) of Expository Composition: Discovering Your Voice (EMC Publishing). Visit his What’s Not Wrong? blog at http://whatsnotwrong.wordpress.com.
Nerdy Book Club 
Yes, it has been a while. Must be time to blow the dust off my copy and give it another go.
My least favorite “dog death” book? Stone Fox. I felt cheated by that book, and the ending just made me angry.
Yes, Maria, blow off the dust! Please let me know how you think Old Yeller holds up.
Thanks for your comment.
Like many, I’m sure, Old Yeller was traumatic for me. I’m crying even now at my advanced age, long past my elementary school days. It is a testament to your sense of stability learned from the love in your family that Old Yeller spoke to you in the way that it did. Thanks for sharing this post. I identified more with Yeller than I did with the boy.
Teresa — I totally get what you’re saying here. That ol’ dog shows us a way to live (and die). Travis is mostly just a bystander transformed by his time with Old Yeller.
Someone with more solid reading pedagogy could probably say this better, but I think a book becomes important to us first by its language, then its story, then its metaphors. If a book speaks to us through each of those personal levels of appeal, interest, and meaning, then that book becomes a part of us. Old Yeller did that for me.
Thank you for your comment.
Gary, I was just discussing “dog books” with my husband last week. You and he would have made fine reading companions. While I loved reading Old Yeller as a child, Curtis adored it. He read all the other titles you listed, too. He grew up as the oldest boy in a somewhat dysfunctional home, and these books gave him an escape–a hope that he’d have the courage to face his fears and become a leader of a brother. Of course, his mom invited about every stray dog alive into their home, so the bond to animals (out of necessity) was there as well. Thanks for sharing this touching review of a much beloved book.
Amy — I wrote about and then took out some of the specific ways that dog books helped me as a kid. Maybe that will be another blog post for another day.
Your husband and I need to talk dog books some time!
Thank you for your comment here.
Thanks for this thoughtful review, Gary. As someone who has only seen the film version, I will be putting this on my TBR list. I’m very much a dog person and appreciate these moments in “dog books” you talk about, and reading that line of Old Yeller’s demise took the breath out of me. I love how we find our own imaginative rehearsals when we aren’t necessarily looking for them. Great post!
Russ — Maybe Old Yeller is due for a re-make, except they’d probably cast Justin Bieber as Travis, and he would break into a sappy ballad at that crucial moment.
I hope you like the book. Please let me know if it holds up for you.
Thanks for your comment.
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A favorite as a child, a favorite as an adult. I’ve read Old Yeller to my classes for 18 years straight and I look forward to the next reading.
Even read some of it at my father’s memorial.
Thanks
An important lesson from Old Yeller…
“That was rough,” he said. “That was as rough a thing as I ever heard tell of happening to a boy. And I’m mighty proud to learn how my boy stood up to it. You couldn’t ask more of a grown man.”
He stopped for a minute. He picked up some little pebbles and thumped them into the water, scattering a bunch of hairy-legged water bugs. The bugs darted across the water in all directions.
“Now the thing to do,” he went on, “is to try to forget it and go on being a man.”
“How?” I asked. “How can you forget a thing like that?”
He studied me for a moment, then shook his head. “I guess I don’t quite mean that,” he said. “It’s not a thing you can forget. I don’t guess it’s a thing that you ought to forget. What I mean is, things like that happen. They may seem mighty cruel and unfair, but that’s how life is a part of the time.”
“But that isn’t the only way life is. A part of the time, it’s mighty good. And a man can’t afford to waste all the good part, worrying about the bad parts. That makes it all bad. . . You understand?”
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Who’s read No More Dead Dogs, by Gordon Korman?
I haven’t read Old Yeller, but I’m tempted to pick it up after your review. Thanks for writing.
i read it in class and the teacher ended up sending me and my 2 friends because we wouldnt stop crying. i hate the ending
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Gary,
Most kids I grew up with here in Texas feel the same way about Fred and Ole’Yeller.
If can make it down here go to Mason, Texas to the little library. Mason is Fred’s home town and the library has lots of Fred Gipson memoribelia.
Fred was also a cousin. I’m proud to share the name.
Tom — Thank you for reply. I would love to come to Mason, Texas and have a look around. After a little research based on your comment, it looks like I need to come down for Old Yeller Days. It’s an honor to have words here from a Gipson cousin.
Lovely review! I loved reading Old Yeller!