Shiloh (novel)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article does not cite any references or sources. (January 2007)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

Shiloh
Author	Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Children's novel
Publisher	Atheneum
Publication date	1991
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	144 pp
ISBN	ISBN 0689316143
Followed by	Shiloh’s Season

Shiloh is a first person children's novel by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. It won the 1992 Newbery Medal. The movie Shiloh was made based on the book in 1996. The story takes place in the small town of Friendly, West Virginia where a eleven year old boy named Marty Preston finds a stray beagle in the hills near his house. The dog follows him home so Marty takes the dog as his own and names him Shiloh. Shiloh's real owner is Judd Travers, who has several dogs that he uses for hunting. Marty does not want to return Shiloh because he fears for the dog's safety because Judd drinks and treats his dogs poorly. Judd tries to get his dog back by intimidating Marty. Marty is frightened, but determined. Somehow he must find a way to keep Shiloh away from Judd.

People often confuse the dog in this story with the imaginary friend featured in Neil Diamond's song, "Shilo". Even though the spelling is different, the song was written over 20 years before the book was published.

[edit] Story behind the story

The story of how Marty finds Shiloh closely mirrors the actual event in which Phyllis Reynolds Naylor and her husband, Rex Naylor, found an abused female stray near the Middle Island Creek in the unincorporated community of Shiloh, Tyler County, West Virginia, (not to be confused with another Shiloh in Raleigh County of southern West Virginia). They were on a walk while visiting friends, Trudy and Charles "Frank" Madden, when they first noticed the shy dog. It had begun to rain hard so they headed back to the Madden house. After Naylor also used the real community of Shiloh for the setting of the book and its two sequels. The church / schoolhouse building has since burned down, and the old single lane, iron frame, plank bridge were due to be replaced as of 2005. Shiloh now consists of only a handful of houses. The area is very hilly, with many winding, narrow gravel roads.