Summer 1986. Thirteen year-old Zora Chapman can't wait to leave her city home for her usual summer of hiking, birding and sketching on her grandparents' prairie farm. This year, though, she's dismayed by unwelcome changes-an encroaching housing development, and the discovery that her grandparents are being pressured by her uncle to develop their land too. Grampa vows to stand firm, especially unwilling to lose the Forever Place, a unique patch of never-cultivated native prairie. Looking for solace on long-familiar trails, Zora spots a family of endangered burrowing owls, whose nest site lies right in the path of construction machines. A stressful confrontation seriously impacts Grampa's health, and Zora fears not only the rare owls may be lost, but the farm as well. A solution comes to light ...but it involves the Forever Place, and Grampa tasks Zora with final approval. Her choice will be bittersweet, but will it offer a deeper understanding of what forever really means?