A READING GUIDE TO Shiloh - Scholastic

1 Scholastic BookFilesA READING GUIDE TOShilohby Phyllis Reynolds NaylorJeannette Sanderson Copyright 2003 by Scholastic 2003 by Phyllis Reynolds NaylorAll rights reserved. Published by Scholastic , Scholastic REFERENCE, Scholastic BOOKFILES, and associatedlogos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic part of this publication may be reproduced, or stored in a retrievalsystem, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without writtenpermission of the publisher. For information regarding permission,write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataSanderson, BookFiles: A READING GUIDE to Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor / Jeannette Sanderson. p. cm. Summary: Discusses the writing, characters, plot, and themes ofthis 1992 Newbery Award winning book.

2 Includes discussionquestions and bibliographical references (p. ).1. Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds. Shiloh Juvenile literature. 2. Human animal relationships in literature Juvenile literature. 3. West Virginia In literature Juvenile literature. 4. Dogs inliterature Juvenile literature. [1. Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds. American literature History and criticism.] I. Title: A ReadingGuide to Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. II. S4837 2003813 .54 dc2120021912300-439-46329-71098765432103 04050607 Composition by Brad Walrod/High Text Graphics, and interior design by Red Herring DesignPrinted in the 23 First printing, July 2003 About Phyllis Reynolds Naylor5 How Shiloh Came About8An Interview with Phyllis Reynolds Naylor11 Chapter Charter: Questions to GUIDE Your READING 18 Plot: What s Happening?22 Setting/Time and Place: Where in the World Are We?

3 27 Themes/Layers of Meaning: Is That What It ReallyMeans?31 Characters: Who Are These People, Anyway?41 Opinion: What Have Other People Thought About Shiloh ?48 Glossary50 Phyllis Reynolds Naylor on Writing52 You Be the Author!55 Activities57 Related Reading62 Bibliography64 ContentsAbout Phyllis Reynolds Naylor I m not happy unless I spend some time,every day, writing. Phyllis Reynolds NaylorPhyllis Reynolds Naylor loves to write. And she writes a has written more than one hundred books and morethan two thousand short stories and articles. She writes forchildren, teenagers, and adults. How can anyone write so much?Was she born writing? Well, just Dean Reynolds was born on January 4, 1933, inAnderson, Indiana. She was the second of three children, with an older sister and a younger brother. Her mother was ahomemaker, and her father was a salesman.

4 It was the GreatDepression, and the family moved around a lot in search of hard-to-find jobs for Mr. the family s hometown changed often, their nighttime ritual did not. Eugene or Lura Mae Reynolds read to their threechildren every night. This planted the seed for their middle child to become a writer. I loved stories as far back as I canremember, Naylor says, because my parents read aloud to usevery night. 5 Naylor began writing her very own books in fourth grade. Sheremembers: Each day I would rush home from school to see ifthe wastebasket held any discarded paper that had one sideblank. We were not allowed to use new sheets of paper for ourwriting and drawing, so books had to be done on used paper. Iwould staple these sheets together and sometimes paste a strip ofcolored paper over the staples to give it the appearance of abound book. Then I would grandly begin my story, writing thewords at the top of each page and drawing an accompanyingpicture on the bottom.

5 And sometimes I even cut old envelopes inhalf and pasted them on the inside covers as pockets, slipping anindex card in each one, like a library book, so I could check it outto friends and neighbors. I was the author, illustrator, printer,binder, and librarian, all in one. Naylor wrote hundreds of these books. The young author screativity wasn t limited to books, however. I always loved tomake things, she says. If I wasn t writing I would be making potholders or building things out of wood. I loved to have a finishedproduct in my hand. When Naylor was sixteen, her first story was published in achurch magazine. As much as she loved to write, however, shedidn t begin her career as a writer right away. I did not knowthat writing would be my life s work until I was in my latetwenties, she says. She had been writing all that time, andsubmitting stories to small magazines, but writing wasn t herfull-time job.

6 She worked as a teacher, a locker-room attendant,a secretary, and an editorial assistant before she dedicatedherself completely to began her writing career in 1960. Five years later, her firstbook the short story collection The Galloping Goat and OtherStories was published. Her first novel, What the Gulls WereSinging, was published two years later. Naylor has published atleast one book a year ever author credits her success to her persistence. If I hadn tstuck with it, if I hadn t tried to make my next story better thanthe one before, I probably wouldn t ever have gotten up thecourage to write books, she says. Where did she learn never togive up? From her father. Naylor says that her father alwaysbelieved that you could accomplish anything you wanted if youreally tried. His daughter proved him so many books to her credit, it s clear Naylor devotes a lot oftime to her craft.

7 Even when I m not writing, I m thinking aboutwhat I m working on or what I want to try next, Naylor says. Butthe author doesn t spend all her time writing. I also take time toswim and hike and snorkel and eat Chinese food and chocolateand go to the theater and play the piano and visit schools andtalk about my books, she also enjoys a happy home life. She and Rex Naylor, aspeech pathologist, have been married for more than forty Naylors live in Bethesda, Maryland, and have two grownsons. 7 How ShilohCame About You get a dog on your mind, it seems tofill up the whole space. Everything youdo reminds you of that dog. Marty, Shiloh What do you do if you find a stray dog that tears at yourheart? If you re Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, you write about Reynolds Naylor met the dog that was to become Shiloh inmuch the same way that Marty does in Naylor s award-winningbook.

8 My husband and I were visiting friends in West Virginia, Naylorrecalls, and rose one morning for a long walk in the littlecommunity known as Shiloh . After passing the old gristmill,crossing the bridge, and walking just past the schoolhouse, theyfound a hungry, trembling and strangely silent dog. The dogwas too frightened to approach them until Naylor whistled. When I whistled, bounding over, leaping up to lick mycheek, Naylor says. It followed us back to the house of ourfriends, and sat out all day in the rain, head on its paws,watching the door. 8It was the saddest dog I d ever seen, Naylor says. And all thatday she couldn t get the dog that was in the yard, in the rain, offher mind. She talked about it with her husband. She talkedabout it with their friends, Frank and Trudy Madden. They toldher that the dog outside was just one of many that ownersregularly abandoned in the West Virginia hills where they words didn t make her feel any left West Virginia that night with a heavy heart.

9 Iagonized all the way back to Maryland that evening, sheremembers. Her husband finally said to her, Are you going tohave a nervous breakdown or are you going to do somethingabout it? Naylor decided to do what she almost always did whenfaced with a difficult problem: write about it. I got hooked on that dog. Naylor remembers. As Marty wouldsay, [I was] whistling as though I meant something, then offeringnothing. I felt I owed it more. Naylor says she wrote the first draft of Shilohat breakneck speed. It was as though I was obsessed with getting to the end of thestory and finding out just what happened between Marty andJudd Travers. The ending was difficult, though, because Naylorkept finding ways Judd might try to trick Marty. I had todiscover, like him, that nothing is as simple as you guess notright or wrong, not Judd Travers, not even Marty himself or thedog, says Naylor.

10 (The author eventually wrote two more Shilohbooks, Shiloh Season and Saving Shiloh , in which she worked outsome of her worries about Judd tricking Marty.)9 The ending may not have been simple, but it was happy. Martydid get Shiloh . There was another happy ending, too. Just a fewweeks after Naylor started writing Shiloh , she got a letter from herfriends the Maddens. They had taken the abandoned dog intotheir home and named it Clover. Naylor remembered thekindness of her friends as well as the book s beginnings whenshe dedicated her book, To Frank and Trudy Madden and a dognamed Clover. 1011An Interview with Phyllis Reynolds NaylorAbout ShilohYou ve said that you keep a notebook full of reference material for whatever book you re working on. Did you keep such anotebook for Shiloh ? If so, what are some of the things itcontained?No, not for Shiloh . Usually I think about a book months, evenyears, before I ever put a word down on paper.