National Network for Equitable Library Service

In 1986, champion cross-country skier Janine Shepherd was training for the Winter Olympics when she was hit by a truck and suffered life-threatening injuries. Janine was told that she would never walk again, a story recounted in her memoir Never Tell Me Never. Not only did Janine confound her doctors by learning to walk again, she learned to fly a plane and became a commercial pilot and aerobatics instructor. She married and had three children, despite the medical belief this would be impossible. That moving and inspirational story is the subject of Dare to Fly, which also describes the incredible response to her first book and the way the Australian public opened their hearts to Janine. The next chapter in her life appeared to be stable and idyllic: buying a farm and moving to the Southern Highlands with her husband and three kids, running the farm, continuing with her aerobatic and flying training, learning to ride a horse. Janine being Janine, she not only learned to ride, but learned dressage, and learned it so well she was in the running for selection in the Paralympic Equestrian Team for the Athens Olympics. Then the unthinkable happened. Her husband, Tim, became seriously ill and suddenly, her long-held dream of country life began to crumble. This is the honest and often heart-wrenching account of Janine's struggle to save her family from an unpredictable and devastating illness that threatened to tear them apart. Anyone who has gained strength and inspiration from Janine's previous books will be saddened and touched, but ultimately uplifted by this incredible story, told with her characteristic warmth, integrity, and humor.