Kids into books: Shiloh

Everyday the Herald carries an extract from a children's book as part of its commitment to children's literacy.

This week's title: Shiloh

By Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Macmillan.

$13.95. 8 to 12 years.

The day Shiloh came, we're having us a big Sunday dinner. Dara Lynn's dipping bread in her glass of cold tea, the way she likes, and Becky pushes her beans up over the edge of her plate in her rush to get 'em down.

May gives us her scolding look. "Just once in my life," she says, "I'd like to see a bit of food go direct from the dish into somebody's mouth without a detour of any kind."

She's looking at me when she says it, though. It isn't that I don't like fried rabbit. Like it fine. I just don't want to bite down on buckshot, is all, and I'm checking each piece.

"I looked that rabbit over good, Marty, and you won't find any buckshot in that thigh," Dad says, buttering his bread. "I shot him in the neck."

Somehow I wish he hadn't said that. I pushed the meat from one side of my plate to the other, through the sweet potatoes and back again.

"Did it die right off?" I ask, knowing that I can't eat it all unless it had.

"Soon enough."

"You shoot its head clean off?" Dara Lynn asks. She's like that.

Dad chews real slow before he answers. "Not quite," he says, and goes on eating.

Which is when I leave the table.