Home
  • Home
  • Latest Issue
  • Past Issues
  • Authors & Artists
  • Articles
  • Reviews
  • News
  • Forums
  • Search

The Runaways

  • View
  • Rearrange

Digital version – browse, print or download

Can't see the preview?
Click here!

How to print the digital edition of Books for Keeps: click on this PDF file link - click on the printer icon in the top right of the screen to print.

BfK Newsletter

Receive the latest news & reviews direct to your inbox!

BfK No. 52 - September 1988

Cover Story
The illustrations on our cover are taken from Starting School by Janet and Allan Ahlberg, published by Viking Kestrel (0 670 81688 4, £6.95). We are grateful to Viking Kestrel for help in using these illustrations.

  • PDFPDF
  • Printer-friendly versionPrinter-friendly version
  • Send to friendSend to friend

The Runaways

Ruth Thomas
(Red Fox)
978-0099596608, RRP £6.99, Paperback
10-14 Middle/Secondary
Buy "The Runaways" on Amazon

Winner of the Guardian Children's Fiction Award this year and a nicely fat book for this age range. The story is a simple one but it's handled very well, very skillfully and very satisfyingly. The portrayal of Julia and Nathan as friendless isolates in their school is deft and the discovery of money is both good adventure stuff as well as the means by which the two are brought together, at first in mutual distrust, and then gradually in a gently created relationship. The mix of solid adventure -- the discovery of the money, running away, a series of dramatic escapades, such an amount of money -- and the creation of the relationship makes the book special. Read it aloud, its series of dramatic episodes makes it ideal (it could make a good class set for first-years) and put in into book boxes.

Reviewer: 
Adrian Jackson
  • About us
  • Contact us
  • Help/FAQ
  • My Account