On the Run

Twelve-year-old Ben Silver, his seven-year-old sister, Olive, and their parents have never been a "family-movie-night, camp-in-the-backyard, let's-discuss-this-and-get-everyone's-opinion" kind of family. So when Ben's parents screech into the driveway one day and announce they're all going on a vacation--now, this minute--Ben is dubious. But he wants to believe his mother when she tells him that getting haircuts and new clothes and holing up in a filthy cabin in the Australian bush are just "what you do" on vacation.

Ben, whose main interests until now have been making stop-motion movies while eating microwaved doughnuts, takes longer than one might expect to wake up to the scary reality of his situation: his parents are on the run from the law. Ben's typical-preteen questions about his own identity--will he grow up to be like his dad?--take a dark turn when it becomes clear that what he might inherit are criminal inclinations. But Ben is truly put to the test when the big duffel bag of cash his parents accidentally acquired (but intentionally are keeping) falls into his own hands. He and Olive are suddenly on the run themselves, whether from the police or their own parents, it's hard to say in the heat of the moment. Soon he's fighting to stay alive in the wilderness, and his battered paperback copy of My Side of the Mountain is no help at all.

In On the Run, a dramatic page-turner by Australian actor-turned-writer Tristan Bancks (Mac Slater series), young readers will find both action and psychological thrills as Ben comes of age abruptly and irrevocably. --Emilie Coulter, freelance writer and editor

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