Healer

To save his friend, a daring young boy infiltrates a healing center

If it weren’t for the migraines, Barry would be an ordinary boy. When a crushing headaches strikes him during the school day, he goes to the nurse’s office to beg for aspirin. He is waiting for her help when a chubby-faced six-year-old girl puts her hands on his neck. Heat flows through them, and when it stops, the headache is gone.

Her name is Pinkie, and she has the power to heal. When her stepfather uses her ability to found a highly profitable healing center, Barry fears the gentle little girl is being exploited. On the outside, Barry is just a scared, sickly teenager. But inside he is Bear—and Bear is afraid of nothing. To save his friend, he infiltrates the healing center, where he will find that those who plan to cure the world’s ills also know something about causing pain.

Peter Dickinson was born in Africa but raised and educated in England. From 1952 to 1969 he was on the editorial staff of Punch, and since then has earned his living writing fiction of various kinds for children and adults. His books have been published in several languages throughout the world.

The recipient of many awards, Dickinson has been shortlisted nine times for the prestigious Carnegie Medal for children’s literature and was the first author to win it twice. The author of twenty-one crime and mystery novels for adults, Dickinson was also the first to win the Gold Dagger of the Crime Writers’ Association for two books running: The Glass-Sided Ants’ Nest (1968) and The Old English Peepshow (1969).

A collection of Dickinson’s poetry, The Weir, was published in 2007. His latest book, In the Palace of the Khans, was published in 2012 and was nominated for the Carnegie Medal.

Dickinson has served as chairman of the Society of Authors and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2009 for services to literature.