On the Run (novel)

On the Run (also Three on the Run) is a 1964 children's novel by British author Nina Bawden. It was also published as Three on the Run in the United States.Amazon.com It is an independent sequel to The House of Secrets.Saturday review, book 48, 1965, p. 130 Online

Plot When Ben's cousins, whom he lives with, are unwell, he is forced to spend the summer with his father and stepmother-to-be. They live in London and have little time to spend with Ben. So Ben decides to explore the gardens of the terrace houses in his street. He walks along the walls connecting all the houses until he comes to one covered in jagged glass. Ben then falls into the garden and meets Thomas, a young boy from Tiga, who is being kept in London, while his father, Chief Okapi, is exiled there. When Ben discovers a plot to kidnap Thomas, he, Thomas and Lil (a friend of Thomas) decide to run away.

Bawden's comments on the book Bawden said that the novel is set in London and in Herne Bay,Autobiography retrieved 21/1/17 ‘a seaside town on the coast of Kent’, where Bawden's parents lived.Cornelia Jones, Olivia R. Way: British children's authors: interviews at home, American Library Association, 1976, , p. 41 - p. 54 Nina Bawden remarked she intended "to write about children actually escaping — even though temporarily – from the world of grownups".

Reviews “Children's Literature Review” states that the book sometimes suffers “slightly through being too full of incident” Carolyn Riley, Gerald J. Senick, Anne Block: Children's Literature Review: Excerpts from Reviews, Criticism, & Commentary on Books for Children & Young People: 002, Gale Research., 1976, p. 9-14

Books On the Run, Faber and Faber, 2009,

References