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.
Hurt Go Happy is a captivating novel for young readers by beloved author Ginny Rorby. The Schneider Family Book Award-winning novel is inspired by the true story of a chimpanzee raised as a human.
Thirteen-year-old Joey Willis is used to being left out of conversations. Though she's been deaf since the age of six, Joey's mother has never allowed her to learn sign language. She strains to read the lips of those around her and often fails. Everything changes when Joey meets Dr. Charles Mansell and his baby chimpanzee, Sukari. Her new friends use sign language to communicate, and Joey secretly begins to learn to sign. Spending time with Charlie and Sukari, Joey has never been happier. But as Joey's world blooms with possibilities, Charlie's and Sukari's choices begin to narrow--until Sukari's very survival is in doubt. Hurt Go Happy is the unforgettable story of one girl's determination to save the life of a fellow creature--one who has the ability to ask for help. Hurt Go Happy is the winner of the Schneider Family Book Award. It's also an International Literacy Association Teachers' Choices selection, a Book Sense Children's Pick, a KLIATT Editor's Choice: Best of the Year's Hardcover YA Fiction selection, and a New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age selection.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.Like Dust, I Rise is an uplifting tale that artfully pulls you into the slipstream of a scrappy girl who defies the ravages of the Dustbowl and The Great Depression to achieve her goal of becoming a pilot. -Bruce Lewis, author of Bloody Paws
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.
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.