Michael J. Bowler ’79 has published the edgy young-adult novel Children of the Knight, which reflects his many years working with marginalized youth in Southern California. A young King Arthur leads a crusade of unwanted kids against an adult society that discards and ignores them. The well-trained army—the children of the knight—eventually win the hearts and minds of the populace at large, and gain a truer understanding of themselves and their worth to society.

Bowler is an award-winning author of three novels. He grew up in San Rafael, California. He taught high school in Hawthorne, California for a number of years, both general education and to students with learning disabilities. He has also been a volunteer Big Brother to seven different boys with the Catholic Big Brothers Big Sisters program and a long-time volunteer within the juvenile justice system in Los Angeles. He is a passionate advocate for the fair treatment of children and teens in California. He has been honored as Probation Volunteer of the Year, YMCA Volunteer of the Year, California Big Brother of the Year, and National Big Brother of the Year. The ?National? honor allowed he and three of his Little Brothers to visit the White House and meet the president in the Oval Office. He has already completed the sequel to Children of the Knight and is hard at work on the third volume in the trilogy.