The Dream Keepers - Softcover

Keen, Linda

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0578466147 ISBN 13: 9780578466149

Publisher: Keen Press, 2019

Synopsis

A suspenseful adventure story of family, friendship, diversity, and self-knowledge. In the first years of the new millennium, Star and Thatcher O'Day are seven and eight years old when they are forced to leave the only home they have ever known.Driving cross country from the Deep South to the West Coast with their grandfather, a famous poet they consider strange, sister and brother will also have to accustom themselves before long to an eccentric artist who does not look or act anything like they think a grandmother should. Settling into entirely new surroundings, their joys as well as trials and tribulations, combined with the ebb and flow of memorable relationships, become central to the siblings' incitement for change.As each advancing year elicits increasing levels of alarm and acute dangers, their continuing encounters steer them into places and circumstances they never could have imagined.

About this title

From the Author

Little did I know in  2002 when working as a school counselor in California that the fictional book I was envisioning and had started writing would speak so appropriately to many of our country's trials as we now experience them. The Dream Keepers, as my story was soon named, took twelve years to write. Uncanny now for its timeliness in relation to many aspects of our country's unfolding future, my story was intended to actuate teenage readers towards a better understanding of diversity, friendship, and self-knowledge. Its purpose was a hopeful step towards motivation--and possibly towards a genuine grasping--of environments and mindsets holding the potential to provide a young person of any race or faith with a sense of dignity, safety, and calm amidst the chaos and turmoil of daily life. 
This 21st century coming-of-age adventure tale is all-embracing, encouraging interest in varying aspects of everyday reality, from practical to spiritual. Its array of unfolding involvements demonstrates the healing power of love, nature, poetry and art, as well as appreciation for scholarship and science. 

As this book was first evolving, I became deeply impressed with poet Langston Hughes after unwittingly placing a poster of him on the wall of my counseling office at a school for students with behavior problems. Curious to know more aboutthis distinguished-looking man, dubbed on the poster as "Poet Laureate of Harlem," I sought out his writings at my public library. Bringing home several books of his poetry, one of them entitled The Dream Keeper and Other Poems,I was profoundly moved, not only by this writer's insights and expressions of compassion and hope, but byhis understanding of the racial challenges our world continues to face long after his passing. In connecting myself with the spirit of one of our country's most inspirational and beloved poets, the emotional journey of my fictional story had begun.

From the Back Cover

As our richly diverse nation finds itself at an often confusing cultural crossroads, this thoughtful adventure story is a wellspring of hope and provides its readers with a treasure of positive insight and encouragement.

About this edition

• Publisher: Keen Press
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 0578466147
• ISBN 13: 9780578466149
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 618