Book Review: Shiloh Trilogy by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
(In the Charlotte Mason method, we recommend the use of living books. Even in their free time, we encourage our children to read living books, although sometimes we may deviate to “light reading” material. Shiloh is one series that our homeschooled son loves, and what follows is his own book review of the series:)
Shiloh, the first book in the trilogy, tells of how Marty Preston, who is eleven years old, finds a runaway dog by the old Shiloh schoolhouse. It turns out that the beagle belonged to Judd Travers, one of the meanest men in West Virginia, who kicks and starves his dogs. Marty won’t rest until he finds a way to keep the dog, whom he names Shiloh. And when Shiloh runs away again–to him–Marty decides that he wasn’t going to give him up to Judd–even if he has to lie about it.
He builds a chicken-wire pen for Shiloh, up on the hill behind their house, and smuggles food from his plate to feed his new pet. All seems to go well, and Marty is just thinking that life was pretty good; but then his Ma finds him playing with Shiloh. She promises not to tell anyone else, for just one day; but that night, a German shepherd comes and mauls Shiloh. They take him to the doctor–by now Marty’s dad knows, too–and although Shiloh recovers in a few days, Judd hears about what had happened. Now Marty has to give Shiloh back–but can he? Should he?
Over his dead body.
A riveting tale of how one boy’s love for his dog makes him do things he’d never before imagined doing. Simply yet powerfully portrayed, anyone from the age of ten above can read it and the rest of the series.
Shiloh Season continues the story, but this time the problem is that Marty wants to make friends with Judd Travers– who starts drinking. It isn’t easy to make friends with a sober Judd; but a drinking, trigger-happy Judd is almost impossible to deal with. Marty is afraid that, with deer season coming and squirrel season never at an end, Judd might take it into his head that it was a good time to start–Shiloh-hunting season!
At the end of the second book, Judd Travers breaks his leg in a car accident. It seems to have changed him a lot–he no longer drank, he no longer kicked his dogs, and he even starts helping folks out after a blizzard snows everyone in. But not everybody seems to take kindly to his efforts; many people still remember the old Judd. Marty is not sure whether Judd will keep trying, or whether he will give up; and even if he does change–will the others let him? Find out in Saving Shiloh.
Naylor is an excellent storyteller, with just the knack of putting things in the right way and at the right time. No adult situations, in this series; only a few cases of profanity, and that mild, compared to modern novels. Other books by Naylor include the Boys Against Girls series, the Alice series, and the Marco and Polo books. So far as I have seen, most of her works are relatively clean; only the Alice books, and Being Danny’s Dog, might require an older audience.
As with L.M. Montgomery, Naylor is one of those authors whose works I don’t hesitate to buy–given the cash. Or even not.
First published in 1991 (Shiloh), so, unfortunately, it’s not in Public Domain. It can, however, be bought at Amazon. I recommend buying the Shiloh trilogy box-set.