Tag Archives: Runaway
Movie Madness and/or Mania: Snowbound (1978)
Welcome back, Constant Readers and thank you for casting a vote in last week’s poll to determine what ELSE we should look at inside a 42-year old issue of Seventeen magazine. With a full 50% of the vote, we shall … Continue reading
To All My Fans, With Love, From Sylvie By Ellen Conford
For Sylvie, movies weren’t just stories. They were a way out. A few years ago I reviewed Conford’s And This Is Laura, and recalled it as pleasant, but largely unremarkable. So I was surprised to find Sylvie a much more sophisticated piece of work, … Continue reading
Steffie Can’t Come Out To Play By Fran Arrick
To meet a man like Favor on her very first day in New York City… Runaway teen stories if this era can be numbingly repetitive- when 14 year old Stephanie Rudd explains that’s she ditching her terrible family and terrible … Continue reading
Dear Lola, Or How To Build Your Own Family By Judie Angell
Can they cover their tracks without uncovering the truth? This one might get the honor of having the weirdest marriage between premise and tone: five minors in various states of having been orphaned or abandoned escape from their temporary group … Continue reading
Secrets Of The Shopping Mall By Richard Peck
Paradise Park takes them in- in more ways than one. Hiding out at the library too academic? Richard Peck takes a tip from George Romero and suggests an alternative! The Plot: Scrappy 8th graders Teresa and Barnie attract the unwanted … Continue reading
The Lonely Trip Back By Florrie Fisher
If you’ve ever wondered what life on the needle is like, ask a white, middle-class, middle-aged lady named Florrie Fisher- she’ll tell you more than you’re prepared to know! Florrie Fisher’s The Lonely Trip Back graphically details a case of … Continue reading
The Runaway’s Diary By Marilyn Harris
Fifteen, almost sixteen, and on the road- to where? Oh, the contradiction of the “Based on a True Story!” story. This book opens with the standard “The characters and situations in this book are wholly fictional… and are not intended … Continue reading
Slake’s Limbo By Felice Holman
To his family and teachers he was a nuisance; to his peers he was a target. The Plot: So. That was weird. Sometimes that is the only reaction I have when I get to the end of one of these. Kids … Continue reading
Debbie By John Benton
An exciting new habit carried an unexpected price tag! Contemporary YA fiction dealing with social problems (delinquency, prostitution, drugs, etc.) kind of wusses out when it comes to depicting the lurid details. There is a reason why the patently fake … Continue reading
Snow Bound By Harry Mazer
How hot is it down here in the city? Hot enough that reading a book about slowly freezing to death in northern New York State sounds positively refreshing. Background: The novel opens with an ominous epigraph from the fall 1970 … Continue reading
Lost Classics of Teen Lit: 1939-1989 