Feature Book of the Week #14 The Young Healer by Frank N. McMillan

Feature Book of the Week

The Young Healer

by 

Frank N. McMillan

In THE YOUNG HEALER tradition meets contemporary when what starts out as just another day becomes anything but that for young Feather Anderson. Her beloved grandfather, a traditional Lakota healer, pulls her out of class one snowy morning and takes her on an old-fashioned vision quest in the heart of New York City in hopes of finding the perfect Lakota medicine. It becomes the most magical day ever for eleven-year-old Feather Anderson, the day she saves her little brother’s life. Feather follows in her grandfather’s footsteps of healing as a medicine man and she then earns her newly-given secret Lakota name.

About the Author

McMillan, 53, began writing after the death of his father. McMillan wondered what he would want to have accomplished when his time was up. The answer was to tell stories and to be published.

"I like writing stories that I would have liked when I was that age," McMillan said. "I like appealing to young people's optimism and idealism. There's this real energy that young people have. I like to kindle that spark."

McMillan's father had a great respect and love for the American Indian culture. His son remembers his father's collection of Tonkawan Indian arrowheads that he found on the family farm in Central Texas. His dad also carved American Indian heads.

It is this childhood memory and a stay on a Montana Indian reservation in the 1990s that inspired McMillan's idea for The Young Healer.