Runner

by Carl Deuker

But the weather-beaten sailboat Chance Taylor and his father call home is thirty years old and hasn’t sailed in years. One step from both homelessness and hunger, Chance worries about things other kids his age never give a thought: Where will the money come for the electricity bill, grocery bill, and moorage fees? So when a new job falls his way, he jumps at the opportunity. He knows how much he will earn; what he doesn’t know is how much he will pay.

  • Format: eBook
  • ISBN-13/ EAN: 9780547349459
  • ISBN-10: 0547349459
  • Pages: 224
  • Publication Date: 04/23/2007

Also available in:

About the Book
About the Author
Reviews
  • About the Book
    When a new job falls his way, Chance jumps at the opportunity, becoming a runner who picks up strange packages on a daily route and delivers them to a shady man at the marina. Chase knows how much he will earn—what he doesn’t know is how much he will pay. 

     

    Suspenseful, fast-paced, and timely, this novel avoids easy answers as it examines issues of terrorism and patriotism, fear and courage, and lives of privilege and poverty.

  • About the Author

    Carl Deuker

    Carl Deuker is a celebrated author of "top-flight sports writing matched to uncommonly perceptive coming-of-age stories" (Kirkus Reviews). He describes his younger self as a classic second-stringer: "I was too slow and too short for basketball; I was too small for football, a little too chicken to hang in there against the best fastballs. So, by my senior year the only sport I was still playing was golf." He was a teacher for many years in the Seattle area, where he now lives with his wife. carldeuker.ag-sites.net/bio.htm

  • Excerpts
  • Reviews
    "The sports and suspenseful action will easily draw readers, as will the gripping adventure’s deeper issues of crime, class, ineffectual parents, and a teen’s questions about his uncertain future." Booklist, ALA

    "Writing in a fast-paced, action-packed, but at the same time reflective style, Deuker uses fewer sports scenes than in his previous novels, and instead uses running as a hook to entice readers into a perceptive coming-of-age novel." School Library Journal

    "Fast-paced and suspenseful." Horn Book
×