Newbery Books discussion

Marty definitely has a dilemma. He must choose between returning a mistreated dog to his cruel owner or keeping the dog and lying to everyone about it. I wonder what an 11 year old reading this book would learn about making tough choices. It is a well written book. I cared what happened to Shiloh even though I don't like to be around real dogs.

I agree that this was a well written book. Life certainly throws us tough choices and kids these days need to learn the really tough ones so young. The one thing that worries me about what they will learn about making tough choices from this book is that you don't need to talk to mom and dad. That bothers me and keeps me from giving this book a high rating.

Even after Marty had come clean about Shiloh he still keeps stuff from his parents when the whole deer thing happens.

I don't expect that parents will need to make all the tough choices that kids face, but parents have more experience and have pretty good advice. Hey, I still talk to my parents when faced with a tough decision. Really good parents will help their kids understand all sides of the choice and then let their kids decide. I wish the book had gone at it from that angle.