SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WAND) -- He was devastated. Alone. Lost.
Springfield's Leonard Shanklin got the worst news a parent can get: his son had been brutally murdered.
Searching for answers, he began what he calls his "spiritual journey" to church on the Capital City's West Side and eventually a peace that soothes the pain of his tragedy.
But that's not the end of Leonard Shanklin, Sr.'s story -- it's quite literally the beginning of the story.
He knew he needed to reach out to young fathers to help them avoid the mistakes he made with his "Mikey" as Leonard Jr. was nicknamed.
The weapon, so to speak, that Leonard, Sr. chose to fight the problem of absentee fathers is a children's book called "Mikey P. Pardee: Seasoned."
In it, Shanklin portrays his son's enjoyment of seasonal traditions, but with a deeper undercurrent: the power of fatherhood and what it looks like to have a healthy father-son relationship.
