Dream Helper — Willard Thompson

Winner of a gold medal from the Independent Publishers Book Awards as the Best Fiction in the Western Pacific Region in 2009, and a finalist in the Eric Hoffer National Book Awards, Dream Helper tells the story of an Indian woman's struggles to preserve her way of life and family at the Franciscan mission of Santa Barbara. California.Set against a background of California in the early years of the 19th Century, A young Chumash Indian woman, Cayatu, flees to the Santa Barbara Mission to escape the threats of the village shaman only to find she is a prisoner, unable to leave the mission after she is baptized a Christian. When she is told by a mission priest she will be locked up each evening in a new women's quarters she tries to flee only to be found by one of the Spanish soldiers at the fort who tries to return her to the mission.What happens after that begins a bittersweet tale of Cayatu's sturggle to preserve her family and way of life.In fictional form, Dream Helper tells the true story of the Franciscan mission system in early California, a system vastly different than the free life the Chumash people had led before the coming of the Spaniards. The two cultures clashed and Cayatu finds herself caught in the middle.The Midwest Book Review called Dream Helper, "A captivating novel from first page to last. ... "Dream Helper: A Novel of Early California" is a captivating novel from first page to last and a must for historical fiction enthusiasts with an interest in the old west.