Most Popular Books by Ginny Rorby

"I don''t realize I''m crying until he glances at me. For a moment, I see the look of anguish in his eyes, then he blinks it away and slips off into the water. I immediately think of the gator. It''s still down there somewhere. . . ." A science-class field trip to the Everglades is supposed to be fun, but Sarah''s new at Glades Academy, and her fellow freshmen aren’t exactly making her feel welcome. When an opportunity for an unauthorized side trip on an air boat presents itself, it seems like a perfect escape—an afternoon without feeling like a sore thumb. But one simple oversight turns a joyride into a race for survival across the river of grass. Sarah will have to count on her instincts—and a guy she barely knows—if they have any hope of making it back alive.

"Inspired by the true story of a chimpanzee who learned sign language"--Front cover.

From Ginny Rorby, the author of Hurt Go Happy, winner of ALA’s Schneider Family Book Award, comes Freeing Finch, the inspiring story of a transgender girl and a stray dog who overcome adversity to find love, home, and a place to belong. When her father leaves and her mother passes away soon afterward, Finch can’t help feeling abandoned. Now she’s stuck living with her stepfather and his new wife. They’re mostly nice, but they don’t believe the one true thing Finch knows about herself: that she’s a girl, even though she was born in a boy’s body. Thankfully, she has Maddy, a neighbor and animal rescuer who accepts her for who she is. Finch helps Maddy care for a menagerie of lost and lonely creatures, including a scared, stray dog who needs a family and home as much as she does. As she earns the dog’s trust, Finch realizes she must also learn to trust the people in her life—even if they are the last people she expected to love her and help her to be true to herself. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Inspired by Amelia Earhart''s heroic flights, young Winona ''Nona'' Williams tenaciously clings to the desire to become a pilot even after her father, with dreams of his own, dismisses the idea. When he quits his job in the Chicago stockyards to join other homesteaders settling the Great Plains, Nona finds herself torn between supporting her father''s vision for their future and her mother''s struggle to adjust to life on a desolate prairie. Initially, things look up for the family as they settle into life in Dalhart, Texas. The wheat boom is in full swing, and it appears her father''s dream of providing his family with a home of their own is coming true. Too soon the effects of the depression impact her family. Then the rains stop. Before long, Dalhart is the epicenter of the Dust Bowl. Like Dust, I Rise transforms poverty into pride and reflects the heroism of endurance.

Hannah Gale starts volunteering at a horse stable because she needs a place to escape. Her father has returned from the Iraq war as an amputee with posttraumatic stress disorder, and his nightmares rock the household. At the stable, Hannah comes to love Jack, Super Dee, and Indy; helps bring a rescued mare back from the brink; and witnesses the birth of the filly who steals her heart. Hannah learns more than she ever imagined about horse training, abuse, and rescues, as well as her own capacity for hope. Physical therapy with horses could be the answer to her fatherÕs prayers, if only she can get him to try.

Schneider Family Book Award-winning author Ginny Rorby has created an irresistible dolphin story about a girl''s struggle to help her autistic brother and herself. Lily loves her half-brother, Adam, but she has always struggled with him, too. He''s definitely on the autism spectrum -- though her step-father, Don, can barely bring himself to admit it -- and caring for him has forced Lily to become as much mother as sister. All Lily wants is for her step-father to acknowledge that Adam has a real issue, that they need to find some kind of program that can help him. Then maybe she can have a life of her own. Adam''s always loved dolphins, so when Don, an oncologist, hears about a young dolphin with cancer, he offers to help. He brings Lily and Adam along, and Adam and the dolphin -- Nori -- bond instantly. But though Lily sees how much Adam loves Nori, she also sees that the dolphin shouldn''t spend the rest of her life in captivity, away from her family. Can Adam find real help somewhere else? And can Lily help Nori regain her freedom without betraying her family?

How can we know what is worth seeking or avoiding in life? Is there anything to know? If so, is it in some sense personal? This fresh and engaging work by noted philosopher Joel Kupperman addresses these questions as it examines the epistemology of value. Kupperman looks first at how judgments of values manifest themselves, whether there can be evidence for them, and whether a realistic account is appropriate. Focusing on emotional states, he rejects the notion that there is one primary value, arguing instead for a pluralistic understanding of value. He contends that value is strongly contextual; the value of a particular set of experiences in one''s life can depend heavily on how they fit in with or provide contrast to other elements. Kupperman argues both for a realistic account of value--some things really do have a value about which we can have reasonable confidence--and for skepticism about how much we can actually know about value. The study moves on to explore the relations between judgments of value, and moral or social policy decisions of how we should behave. Acknowledging strong objections to the attempt by any group to impose its vision of a good life in a pluralistic society, Kupperman nevertheless argues that proper attention to value leads to perfectionism in social policy. Emphasizing the importance of detail in ethics, he focuses on variations among cases, and examines the weight cultural values can have in the social policy of a liberal society. Going further than previous works in determining what counts as evidence for a judgment of value, this book fills a substantial gap in the literature of ethical philosophy. Tackling difficult issues in an accessible manner, it will interest philosophers and students of ethics, epistemology, and social theory.

Can a young girl with a juvenile record convince the authorities that a greenhouse full of plants are the witnesses to a crime-and that she can prove it? Girl Under Glass is the story of a rootless, rebellious young girl sinking deeper into juvenile delinquency. Given one more chance to avoid juvenile hall, a judge assigns her to community service with a cranky botanist studying plant communication. When he is beaten and left for dead, Kelsey must convince the lead detective that an entire greenhouse full of plants is witness to the crime, and she knows how to prove it. Girl Under Glass builds on the intriguing science behind The Secret Life of Plants, What Plants Know, The Hidden Life of Trees, and Finding the Mother Tree, all dealing with the cutting-edge research being conducted into the ability of plants to warn other plants of invasions of predatory beetles and certain diseases, and to alter their chemistry from tasty to toxic.