Shiloh Blog

Meet my students in our book club?

My granddaughter and four friends have been reading or year on zoom, over 20 books. We are finishing Shiloh this week, and wonder if you could meet with us on zoom next week, Monday or Thursday, May 24 or 27 at 4:00 pm for 10-15 minutes? Judy Monie

It would have to be in June sometime, and you would need to host it and furnish the link.   I have a novel I need to finish by end of May….

Engaging students

Dear Mrs. Naylor, I am teaching a 4th grade class in Pierce, Colorado. We have been doing read aloud time in the afternoon, and have completed Shiloh. We are now over halfway through Shiloh Season, and I wanted you to know how engaged my students are. There are so few things that do that these days. We wanted to thank you for your work on these books. They are so good. I have incorporated the books into lessons that fit our Random Acts of Kindness curriculum. We wrote an “I Am” poem, and have listed examples of Marty’s honesty, courage, responsibility, and kindness. He is a remarkable boy! The kids wanted me to share the “I Am” poem with you – so I will try here:

I am brave and caring.
I wonder how Shiloh is doing.
I hear barking with love.
I see Shiloh rolling in the grass with me.
I want to keep Shiloh forever.

I am brave and caring.
I feel pressured.
I touch Shiloh’s floppy ears.
I worry about Judd coming for Shiloh.
I cry when Shiloh is hurt.

I am brave and caring.
I understand when we don’t have food for Shiloh.
I say I love Shiloh.
I dream that Shiloh will get better everyday.
I hope Shiloh will be safe at all times.

I am brave and caring.

We truly enjoy your work. Thank you for sharing!

Thank you so much for sharing this with me.  I love the concept of “Random Acts of Kindness.”   If you will send me your name and the address of the school, I’d love to send a Shiloh poster for your classroom.

In 3rd or 4th grade

Ok I’m going to get straight to the point. So when I was little like around 6 or 7 years old I was obsessed with dogs. I loved dogs. I always wanted one but my parents never aloud me to get one. I even got in trouble for trying to steal one once. That’s how much I really wanted a dog. So than one day in 3 or 4 grade I don’t remember exactly what grade. The book fair came and we got to look around for a book to buy. I had no money so I just had to look around and see others get what they wanted. So we go back to the classroom to do our work like usual. Than my teacher sends me to the book fair to buy her a book. The book name was “Shiloh”. I didn’t know what it was about but I went to get it and when I saw the front cover I was so happy! I have no idea why but all I know is that it had to do with a dog. She began to read it. As she read to us I was getting more interested and excited. When she was done I decided to steal the book. I stole the book read it at home and came back to school. She asked me if I had the book and I said yea that I kept it and took it home. When I tell you she was so angry she screamed at me so loud. That my little 6-7 year old self started crying so bad. I was in tears I was telling her that I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to take it home. So I ran out the class with tears running down my face. It was horrible. I couldn’t control my emotions. I was so upset and so mad. After crying for about 30 mins maybe even a hour alone in the stairs one of my friends got sent out to make me happy. It worked but I got the book taken away. That book was like a gem to me. I was so attached to it. I was so heartbroken.. As a little girl who was super sensitive it left a very big impact in my life. So thanks for the amazing book I loved it. I was able to get one my self a few years later. Your the reason why I now have 2 furry friends. I will always remember that day. Your book and you yourself have changed my life!!! I hope you doing great and staying safe.

All love Jakie.

Awww…  I was hoping that the teacher realized how much you loved dogs, and had sent you to buy Shiloh for yourself.  I guess we all can think of times that we were misunderstood as children, but I’m glad that you finally were able to buy Shiloh for your own.  I’m especially glad that you have some real live Shilohs to love!   Yes, I’ve had my second vaccination for COVID and am doing fine.

Shiloh is my favorite series

I’m almost 10 years old, and I live in China. My family and I have lived here (in Wuhan, China) my whole life.

My favorite book series is Shiloh. I’ve read the Shiloh series more than 20 times. I like it so much because of the lessons it teaches kids. Plus, it’s so much fun and is a great story. I dressed up as Marty Preston for Halloween last year. Thank you for writing Shiloh.

My second favorite book series is Girls vs Boys. I like it so much because of the tricks and fun they have together. Thank you again for writing Girls Against Boys or Boys Against Girls, however you say it.

P.S. I read Huckleberry Finn, and I like it too. Except I read it by myself. My mom said I pay such good attention.

Mr. Little Franks, also known as Daniel Franks.

I’m so glad you like my books.  Those are two very different series, aren’t they?   I had a lot of fun thinking up those tricks that the two families would play on each other  There is another 4-part series I think you might like–my “Cat Pack” books, about two tabby house cats who plan their escape.  They go out at night and meet up with a club of cats that get together in a garage, and you will meet all kinds of animal characters, “Bertram the Bad,”  “Steakknife,”  “Carlotta”….  Begin with “The Grand Escape,” then read “The Healing of Texas Jake”; “Carlotta’s Kittens” and finally “Polo’s Mother.”

Where to buy the Shiloh books?

Hello! My son loves the Shiloh books and he even has a puppy named Shiloh! His 14th birthday is coming up and I want to buy him the books so he doesn’t have to keep borrowing them from the library and I was just wondering where I can buy these books if they’re still on sale?

If your local bookstore doesn’t have them in stock, you can buy them from Amazon or ask a bookstore to special order them for you direct from the publisher.  All four books are still selling well.

sistersville, wv

I read the shiloh books with my children and now my grandson. I love how well you describe Sistersville as being a good place to live as I was born and raised there. Everytime I read the book it takes me back to those wonderful days. I haven’t lived there since 1988. I still have family and friends that live. It breaks my heart that it isn’t that wonderful place anymore. I was just wondering how you were able to describe Shilow, and the surrounding areas so well? Did you live there or have family there? Thank you for a book that I will never get tired of reading with my grandchildren

Shiloh was named after a real dog which we came across when we were visiting old college friends of my husband’s up in Friendly, and I’m sure you know where that is.  Rex and I had risen early one morning to walk along Middle Island Creek, and that’s where we found a skinny, frightened, filthy little dog, something like a beagle.  I couldn’t get that dog out of my mind after we left to go back to Bethesda MD, so I wrote a book about a beagle that is mistreated, and gave myself the task of figuring out how an eleven-year-old boy could get the dog from its miserable owner.  We visited a number of times, and I think we went to dinner occasionally in Sistersville.  I just remember some Victorian houses.  Our friends eventually moved to Missouri to be near their sons, but my husband too is from Buckhannon, so I got to know and love West Virginia.

Novel Study

Hi, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. I just wanted to say that our grade 5/6 class is going to read your book Shiloh. I would also like to know how to create books, because I would like to know how to write books. I would really like to write books like you.

You start out writing short stories before you write books.  And a short story starts with a seed–an idea–something that happened to you, maybe, or that you heard or read about, or just a funny idea that came to you in the middle of the night.  You think about it some more.  Change it a little bit.  Make it happen to someone else.  Make it start differently.  Make it end differently.  Make it funny.  You just keep trying different clothes on your idea, changing, erasing, adding this and that, till finally you have an interesting character, an exciting or funny situation. you can hear that person talk in your head, and you revise your story again and again and again and again until you think it’s perfect.  And then you revise some more and let someone read it.

Thank you Mrs. Naylor!

Hi Mrs. Naylor! I read the Shiloh series COUNTLESS times growing up as a kid and always wanted to email or mail you a letter expressing my gratitude to you for being a big part of my childhood. I am in college now and have just been reminded of the series through a series of fortunate events thankfully. But I just wanted to say thank you. Your writing helped me through so many horrible times. Your writing helped me through so many happy times. Your writing brought me to a world which I loved and sometimes even saw myself in, mainly in Marty. You are a truly wonderful person and I’ve never even met you, thank you Mrs. Naylor.

I can feel my face blush, but thank you very much.  I think it helped me to write the series–just the realization that life is full of situations in which both sides of a question seem to have a “right” and a “wrong” way of responding, and we have to decide which road to take.  It’s wonderful to know that the series was helpful to you, and I wish you all the best, in college  and beyond.

Your book

is your dog dead

Yes, both the springer spaniel I grew up with, and the dog that inspired the movie, SHILOH.  The people who adopted that dog named it Clover, but in my book I named her (the dog I found was female) Shiloh, because I found her in Shiloh W. Va.   She died in the year 2000 and I bought a marker to put on her grave there.

I again sincerely request you to correct this error.

To whom it may concern,

The recent inquiries that you would have received from several Korean students regarding the book, Shiloh, stems from me. As I’ve stated in my previous letter, I run book discussion sessions with many gifted Korean students. After covering Shiloh in my class, I recommended my students to visit the website to learn more about the book and its author, Mrs. Naylor.

I was oblivious of the error at the time. The error that I’ve mentioned, along with many of my great students, point to this specific website. I have high confidence that this error is not the fault of the publisher, as you’ve replied, but rather the website organizer.

As I’ve mentioned, the exact error is: the cover of the Korean edition of Shiloh is wrongly labelled as “Shiloh edition from Japan” on the website: . I again sincerely request you to correct this error.

Thank you, again, for your consideration, and I apologize for the inconvenience that this incident may have caused you.

Thank you.

It has now been corrected.  Thanks for calling it to our attention.