JOHN J. MILLER, M.D.
A dedicated pediatrician who loves children, John J. Miller M.D. is on a mission to make hospital
stays for kids less intimidating and to help them fill the time with great reads.
Born just outside of Philadelphia, Dr. Miller was the eldest of four boys raised by his machinist
father and his stay-at-home mother. At the age of five, John was diagnosed with cancer—a
neuroblastoma—requiring surgery and a prolonged hospital stay.
“It was during that month in the hospital that my imagination just soared. In those days, we didn’t
have any TV, IPads, IPhones, board games, or books to read in our ward of twelve pediatric
beds. So I would lie there and gaze out the window for hours, watching the enormous brick
smokestack across the ground belching its white smoke high into the sky. In my mind, I would
create images of what I thought the smoke was forming—dragons, knights on horseback, spears
and lances, castles.”
Years later, following graduation from Thomas Jefferson Medical School in Philadelphia, Dr. Miller headed
west to California. He has been a dedicated Pediatrician and Neonatologist in Southern California for the
past forty-five years, caring for and healing thousands of children.
Dr. Miller is married with three grown children and three beautiful grandchildren.
“Pediatrics is my life! This book was written so that I could give something to the children in our hospitals
to help them escape, for a short time, the burden of their illnesses—just like my smokestack did for me.
I’ve always been just a big kid at heart!”
KEEPOURKIDSREADING,INC
“KEEP OUR KIDS READING,INC. has been created to help to donate these novels to children
throughout our country. My hope and my dream would be to have a book in every hospitalized
child’s hands for them to read or for their mothers and fathers to read to them.”
“I have worked in hospital settings for over four decades. They are, no doubt, a scary place for children.
Loud hallways, enormous, cold, stainless steel cabinets, overhanging IV poles with strange liquids
dripping down into plastic bags, endless numbers of strangers coming in and out of the child’s room.”
“I want to be helpthem to escape that world. Having a book of fantasy to read, or for their parents to read
to them, will hopefully allow them to do that.”
When not tending to the children in his practice or in the hospital, Dr. Miller spends time with his kids and
grandkids, travels the world with his wife, loves to entertain friends, and has adventures—with his
characters—in the lands about which he writes.
“As I grow older, writing has become a new passion in my life. I love to create new worlds of fantasy and
breathe life into the characters that populate those worlds. I hope that my novels will inspire our younger
generations to dream, to fantasize, and then to realize that they can accomplish anything they set their
minds to.”
John doesn’t dream small. And he knows that mindset is important to health and healing in the young as
much as in those who are older. With his KEEP OUR KIDS READING
501(c)(3)Foundation in place, John is determined to bring books to kids in every
hospital in the United States and, eventually, beyond., providing at least
momentary relief from the stress of the environment to the children and their
adults who share these books with them.
THE BOOK OF SPELLS
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU PUT TOGETHER…
SEVENTH CENTURY SOUTHERN ENGLAND…
A KINGDOM RULED BY A KIND AND GENEROUS KING…
THREE SISTERS WITH A BOOK OF SPELLS…
AND A WIZARD GROWING MORE EVIL BY THE DAY?
.
Transporting the reader back to Southern England into the midst of the seventh century, THE BOOK
OF SPELLSsets us in the Kingdom of Vilgar, .governed by a generous king in whose household an
evil wizard has positioned himself.
Convincing the king that his powers of magic and premonition will benefit the
kingdom, Malecar becomes the court wizard, surreptitiously studying the dark arts in
his quest to rule over the kingdom.
When Martir, a kind and gentle wizard arrives, he is appointed Malecar’s apprentice
and becomes a close friend and confidant of the king’s son, Auidric.
The forest bordering Vilgar is a refuge to three witches. Sisters, the young women are
in possession of a book they cannot open. Dabbling in the dark arts so that they
might protect themselves, they realize that the book may just contain the darkest of
spells.
Confronted by Malecaran frightened, the sisters give him access to THE BOOK OF
SPELLS, and the evil within him allows him to open it.
What happens when an evil wizard has access to powers beyond his wildest desires. Or when a
gentle wizard becomes his nemesis – and the only protection for the Kingdom he serves?
Working its magic on young and old alike, THE BOOK OF SPELLS will carry readers to a time and
place where magic is the norm, where good and evil are at odds, and where maybe – just maybe –
the gentle are stronger than they ever imagined they could be.