Shiloh is a children’s novel written by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, and the winner of the 1992 Newbery Medal for its contribution to children’s literature. It contains the story of Marty Preston, a child from a lower income family in rural West Virginia. He loves animals, and on one of his weekend walks through the countryside, he is followed by a malnourished, nervous beagle who turns out to be owned by a local resident named Judd Travers, who is known for owning a bevy of dogs for hunting game. Judd Travers is also known for drinking too much alcohol and for abusing his dogs, so Marty does not want to return Shiloh. His parents make him return the dog to its rightful owner, but Shiloh returns to the Preston home before long. Marty attempts to keep the dog concealed from both his parents and Judd Travers, hiding him in a makeshift pen a fair distance from the Preston home. While this works for a time, Shiloh is eventually attacked by another large wandering dog, and the necessary treatments by a doctor let the entire town know who had Shiloh in their possession. Judd Travers seeks to reclaim his dog once the dog heals, but Marty offers to work for Judd in exchange to keep him. While Judd is resistant, Marty seeks to blackmail him because Marty witnessed Judd poach a deer out of season, a serious crime in their area. They come to an agreement for Marty to do some handywork around Judd’s yard in exchange for Shiloh’s ownership, and Judd very slowly develops a slight bit of respect for Marty keeping his word and completing the work, despite ongoing hostilities between them. In the end, Judd keeps his word and signs over ownership of Shiloh to Marty Preston. 
Before reading, I would pre-teach a selection of vocabulary words. In my hypothetical class, I would be teaching Shiloh to grade 3 students. Though Shiloh is written in rather simple language, it does contain some tricky words that grade 3 students 
might not be familiar with. These words include: groveling, ticks, veterinarian, nourish, suspicion and quarrel. We would have a group discussion with these words, and examples of them in sentences, on the board, easel, or transparency, and we would work together to decipher their meaning through context and from individual students discussing their previous experiences with these words, if they have them. Some of the students, for example, might have pets and know what a veterinarian is, and they could share those experiences with the class, or they might have experiences with their dog or cat getting ticks. We would then work together to make new sentences with these words before tackling them within the reading itself. 
