# Old Yeller

**Author:** Fred Gipson
**Grade range:** Grades 5–8
**Age range:** 10–13
**First published:** 1956
**Page count:** 192
**Genre:** Middle Grade Fiction
**ISBN-13:** `9780060739454`
**ISBN-10:** `0060739452`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/old-yeller
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

Set on a hardscrabble Texas farm in the 1860s, Fred Gipson's Newbery Honor novel follows fourteen-year-old Travis Coates, left to run the family homestead while his father is away on a cattle drive. A big yellow stray dog adopts the family and proves himself again and again — guarding the children, fighting off wild hogs and a bear — until a brush with rabies forces Travis into a heartbreaking decision that marks his passage into adulthood.

## Themes

- family
- courage
- survival
- animals
- grief
- growing up

## Where this book is assigned

### Oklahoma Sequoyah Children's Book Award

- **recommended** · 5th grade · Oklahoma — [source: Oklahoma Library Association — Sequoyah Book Award, Children's (gr 3-5) + Intermediate (gr 6-8) divisions (student-choice; since 1959); winner roll 1959-2025](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoyah_Book_Award)
- **recommended** · 6th grade · Oklahoma — [source: Oklahoma Library Association — Sequoyah Book Award, Children's (gr 3-5) + Intermediate (gr 6-8) divisions (student-choice; since 1959); winner roll 1959-2025](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoyah_Book_Award)
- **recommended** · 7th grade · Oklahoma — [source: Oklahoma Library Association — Sequoyah Book Award, Children's (gr 3-5) + Intermediate (gr 6-8) divisions (student-choice; since 1959); winner roll 1959-2025](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoyah_Book_Award)
- **recommended** · 8th grade · Oklahoma — [source: Oklahoma Library Association — Sequoyah Book Award, Children's (gr 3-5) + Intermediate (gr 6-8) divisions (student-choice; since 1959); winner roll 1959-2025](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoyah_Book_Award)

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