cover image On the Run

On the Run

Tristan Bancks. FSG/Ferguson, $16.99 (240p) ISBN 978-0-374-30153-8

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. (Nov.)