Shiloh Season

Shiloh Season by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
sequel to the 1992 Newbery Medal Winner Shiloh
Also won several Children's Choice awards in various states.

After reading Shiloh out loud to my son Jabu age 10, I looked up the other two books in the series and checked them out of the library.

In some ways I liked Shiloh Season even more than Shiloh. It wasn't quite as action packed, but had some great conversations between Marty (the 11 year old boy telling the story) and "Doc" the doctor that patched up his dog. The author is especially good at delving into moral ethical issues that don't fall neatly into black and white, right and wrong.

In this book Judd Travers is drinking hard and even scarier than he was in the first book.

Marty keeps reaching to build a bridge between his family and Judd despite everything that has happened. And in fact the whole mountain community comes forward to help Judd out in a time of need.

Doc has told Marty that "people have to learn kindness, just like you have to learn to tie your shoes." And Marty has quizzed a vet in town about whether dogs as mean as Judds could ever be nice dogs again; the vet thinks, yes, that it wouldn't be easy, but step by step they could learn to trust someone. Marty tries to put this into practice with Judd himself, hoping by showing him kindness he might learn a little bit of it.

Nice book. I'd recommend it. And we're keeping on with the last book in the series starting bed time tomorrow!