The Queen of Xana - Paperback

Fred Pilcher is a retired college physics teacher who knows from experience with his pupils that through nurturing, nearly all young people can become productive citizens. His great sadness is that in American society and in many other countries millions of underprivileged children are denied this nurturing. Both the children and their countries are poorer for losing what they could otherwise produce. As a scientist, Fred understands that critical thinking and following where the evidence leads are the only reliable ways to understand the real world. Away from the real world of hard evidence, Fred reads science fiction and fantasy. His favorite childhood movie was the Walt Disney 1950 cartoon, Cinderella, and he greatly admires women who are both strong and compassionate. Fred brings together all of these ingredients in this story of a princess who becomes a wise and inspired queen with a personal mission to achieve productivity, prosperity, and happiness for all of her people. Fred says "In describing her means to achieve her glorious dream, I have, through a series of adventures, presented numerous viewpoints of moral, educational, and political philosophy with which readers may agree or disagree. If these viewpoints stimulate vigorous discussion and argumentation, pro and con analysis, and the like, then this book will have achieved a useful place in the world of literature."