On the Run

September 7, 2015
In this dynamic adventure, an overt tribute to My Side of the Mountain, 12-year-old Ben Silver, nicknamed “Cop” for his endless strings of questions, spends his days indoors, making stop-action movies about detectives and eating junk food. When police come looking for his parents, Ben is thrust into his own thriller. Hiding out in his grandfather’s run-down cabin, Ben tries to piece together clues and determine what role he will play in his parents’ crime story: “In Ben’s stories, the good guys always won. But Ben didn’t know who the good guys were in this story. Or where it would end.” When Ben and his younger sister, Olive, end up on the run, he faces both moral questions and very real life-or-death situations. Bancks’s (Mac Slater Hunts the Cool) characters, particularly Ben’s parents, are rich with their own failings, requiring expanded definitions of heroism and redemption. Suspense and fear make Ben feel like he’s living his own stop-action movie, and indeed his story has both the exciting pace and high stakes of a summer blockbuster. Ages 10–12. Agent: Catherine Drayton, Inkwell Management.

August 1, 2015
When police officers show up at Ben Silver's house, he is initially excited. He has always wanted to be a detective, and his father's nickname for him is even Cop. But when the police reveal they are searching for his parents, Ben's excitement turns into fear. Ben's parents return home soon after the police depart, telling Ben and his 7-year-old sister, Olive, that they are going on a vacation. But vacations do not usually involve haircuts, high-speed police chases, and lying low in an abandoned cabin deep in the woods. Using his investigative skills, Ben searches his father's gym bag and finds a huge stash of money. Further clues yield the source of the cash and his parents' plans to flee the country. Ben knows it may be up to him to keep his sister safe from his increasingly erratic father. But can an overweight kid who prefers video games to being outside survive in the woods? The tension between Ben and his father is perfectly pitched, and Ben's dread of his wrath is painful to read. But Ben's internal struggle between what he believes are his better and worse selves is forced, robbing the second half of tension. Believable but too bifurcated to fully satisfy. (Thriller. 8-12)

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July 1, 2015

Gr 5-8-The most adventure Ben sees on a daily basis is in the stop-motion movies he makes alone in his room, and that's the way he likes it. However, his safe, sedentary life is altered when Ben's parents whisk him and his sister away on a road trip to an isolated cabin in the woods. His parents claim they are on vacation, but Ben begins to think they are on the lam. He pieces together clues to discover that millions of dollars were mistakenly deposited into his parents' bank account, and they've chosen to run off with it. He is torn between turning in his parents to the authorities, thereby ending the misery of being on the run, and staying loyal to them, thereby seeing if money (even if stolen) can indeed buy happiness. This is an adventure story with broad appeal, from high-speed police chases, to wilderness survival. There are a number of extended, suspenseful scenes, including one in which the boy and his sister must survive on their own in the woods for several days. Ben is a well-developed, sympathetic character, grappling with a cruel father, weight problems, and evolving confusion about his place in his family, with age-appropriate confusion and insecurity. VERDICT This is a story that will appeal to avid consumers of adventure stories and reluctant readers alike.-Jenna Lanterman, formerly at The Calhoun School and Mary McDowell Friends School, New York City

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