Ginny Moon author Benjamin Ludwig joins host Janeane Bernstein Monday at 9:15am pst

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A life-long teacher of English and writing, Benjamin Ludwig lives in New Hampshire with his family. He holds an MAT in English Education and an MFA in Writing. Shortly after he and his wife married they became foster parents and adopted a teenager with autism. Ginny Moon is his first novel, which was inspired in part by his conversations with other parents at Special Olympics basketball practices.


ABOUT THE BOOK
Synopsis
Ginny Moon

To Ginny, a child with autism, the word Forever means until the police come.

Five years ago the police forcibly removed her from the home of her abusive birth mother, Gloria. Now fourteen, and in her fourth Forever Home, Ginny remains hell-bent on finding her way back to Gloria’s apartment. She has no illusions about her mother’s addictions or lack of parenting skills. She knows that it might be dangerous – that it might even kill her. Still she plots, obsessed with returning to Gloria’s to find something she insists she left behind, something she hid under her bed. Her teachers, therapist, and new Forever Parents are in turn frustrated, infuriated, and perplexed.

The novel opens with Ginny secretly contacting Gloria and revealing her new address. When mother and daughter try to reunite, the police and courts quickly become involved, monitoring Ginny constantly. After her Forever Mother gets pregnant, Ginny’s already-fragile relationship with her disintegrates, and her Forever Parents begin the process of placing Ginny at St. Genevieve’s Home for Girls, effectively un-adopting her.

But Ginny has other plans. She’ll steal and lie, and reach across her past to exploit the good intentions of her aunt and her birth father – anything it takes to get back what’s missing in her life. She’ll even get herself kidnapped: all for the sake of reclaiming her smothered innocence, all for the sake of finding what she left behind the farthest edge of Forever.