page_title: Shiloh (Naylor novel)
section_title: Autobiographical elements
hierarchical_section_title: Shiloh (Naylor novel) / Autobiographical elements
caption_attribution_description: English: A photo of the beagle Clover who inspired Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's 1991 Newbery Medal-winning children's novel Shiloh
context_page_description: Shiloh is a Newbery Medal-winning children's novel by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor published in 1991. The 65th book by Naylor, it is the first in a quartet about a young boy and the title character, an abused dog. Naylor decided to write Shiloh after an emotionally taxing experience in West Virginia where she encountered an abused dog.
  Narrator and protagonist Marty Preston lives in the hills of Friendly, West Virginia. After finding an abused beagle owned by his brutal neighbor Judd Travers, Marty defies his society's standards of not meddling with each other's business. Marty resolves to steal and hide the dog, naming him Shiloh and fabricating a web of lies to keep his secret. After his theft is discovered, Marty discovers Judd shooting a deer out of season and blackmails him into selling Shiloh to him. Because he lacks the money to buy Shiloh, Marty resolutely works for Judd doing numerous chores.
  Primarily a Bildungsroman and adventure novel, the novel depicts the emotional tribulations and maturing of an 11-year-old boy. Some themes of the novel are ethics, consequentialism, religion and morality, and animal–human relationships.
context_section_description: In a 1992 interview about Shiloh, Naylor said: "Like a patchwork quilt, a novel is made up of things that have happened to me and things I have heard or read about, all mixed up with imaginings." Naylor's characters are frequently based on herself and her two sons. She penned the novel following an excursion with her husband, Rex, to visit their friends, Frank and Trudy Madden, in West Virginia. Naylor and Rex were strolling along a river when they discovered a dog in the grass following them. Dejected and frightened, the dog was "the saddest, most mistreated-looking beagle I'd ever seen", Naylor later said. Because the dog frequently shuddered and slunk forward on her belly, Naylor suspected she had been abused. On a whim, Naylor whistled and the dog rushed forward, lapping Naylor's face. Tailing them until they reached the Maddens' house, the beagle remained under a tree, her paws cushioning her head during the drizzly afternoon. Naylor cried during her and her husband's trip home that night.
  
  Rex asked her if she would have a "nervous breakdown" or if she would "do something about it". That "something" referred to writing a book, which she did. She believed that someone had abused the dog and was confronted by a series of questions: 
  What if I knew who was abusing it? What if I knew who it belonged to? What if the dog kept running to me? Then, if you write for children, you think about what if I was 11 years old?
  The Maddens resided near Shiloh, West Virginia, where Naylor found the abused dog in 1989, so she decided to name the book's dog Shiloh. Because the Maddens' post office address is in Friendly, West Virginia, Naylor chose the town as her book's setting. Trudy and Frank Madden adopted the abused dog Naylor had seen. Trudy Madden said in a 1997 interview that Naylor's description of Shiloh, West Virginia, was precise. By following the directions in Shiloh and its sequels, the town's houses, mill, and schoolhouse could be located easily.
caption: Clover, the mistreated beagle in West Virginia who inspired Naylor to write Shiloh
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