Gary Green blends mental health tools with YA fantasy

Retired Minnesota mental health professional Gary Green has launched a young adult fantasy series that folds mindfulness and emotional regulation into an adventure narrative for teens. The Rebecca Pendragon Trilogy is aimed at readers navigating grief, self-doubt and other adolescent stressors.

Why it matters: - Adolescents are facing rising mental health strain, and Green is trying to meet that need with fiction instead of traditional self-help. - The project aims to give young readers practical tools for grief, attention and emotional regulation inside a story they may actually want to read. - Green frames the series as a way to help teens build resilience without making the material feel clinical or preachy.

What happened: - Minnesota author and retired mental health professional Gary Green released The Rebecca Pendragon Trilogy as a young adult fantasy series built around psychological coping skills. - The series centers on 12-year-old Rebecca, who loses her mother in an auto accident and moves to rural Minnesota to live with her grandmother. - Green says the series is designed to inspire “joyful sanity.”

The details: - Green holds a psychology degree from St. Cloud State University. - He grew up on a small dairy farm near New London, Minnesota, and still lives there with his wife, Tammy. - Green spent decades working in mental health care with people facing trauma, addiction and recovery. - After retiring from clinical work, Green turned to writing as a preventive mental wellness tool. - His earlier nonfiction books include In Pursuit of Joy, an autobiographical account of recovery from depression and alcoholism, and The Mindful Lifestyle. - The Rebecca Pendragon Trilogy blends Arthurian lore, dragons and ancient woodland realms with themes of social isolation, grief and self-doubt. - The books embed mindfulness and cognitive behavioral concepts, including observing thoughts without judgment and using breath regulation during crisis. - The narrative avoids long lectures on mental health and instead ties emotional regulation to plot problems the characters must solve. - The books also include classical references, including quotes from Lao Tzu, along with historically grounded world-building and school-based social struggles. - The trilogy and Green’s nonfiction titles are available in paperback, hardcover and e-book formats through Amazon and Barnes & Noble. - Reading group guides and bonus materials are available at the author’s official portal. - Green also maintains a Facebook page at Gary Green.

Between the lines: - The pitch is less about fantasy as escape and more about fantasy as a delivery system for coping skills. - That approach could appeal to educators, parents and young readers who want support material that feels accessible rather than instructional. - The series also reflects a broader trend of mental health content being packaged in entertainment formats for younger audiences.

What's next: - Green is positioning the trilogy and accompanying guides for readers, families and potentially school or discussion-group use. - The availability of bonus materials suggests the project is meant to extend beyond the books themselves and into guided reflection.

The bottom line: - Green is using YA fantasy to make mental health tools feel less like homework and more like part of an adventure.