Runt (Craig Silvey, illus by Sara Acton, A&U)
Nobody knows where Runt came from, but everybody knows he’ll only listen to Annie. Annie’s instinct is to fix everything, and Runt’s is to follow Annie. When anyone else is watching, Runt won’t budge, but when he’s alone with Annie he’ll do anything she wants. With Runt, Craig Silvey has concentrated his interest on the outsider in this charming book. Annie comes from a family of inventors and experimenters, larger than life characters who will do anything for each other—it’s Roald Dahl-esque in the best of ways, with enough whimsy and nostalgia to appeal to adults, and humour and suspense for the book’s ideal middle-grade reader. When Annie realises that Runt is clever enough (and fast enough) to win the local dog race and perhaps even the prestigious Krumpets Dog Show she sees a way to make her family enough money to solve all of their problems, but first she’ll have to overcome Runt’s fear of an audience. Silvey is a natural at writing for this age-bracket. Runt is a real page-turner, and despite the enormous cast of characters all of the narrative strands come together in the book’s triumphant end. And although the story follows a fairly predictable narrative, the familiar comfort makes for a heartwarming read that readers young and old will delight in.
Bec Kavanagh is a Melbourne writer and academic, and the youth programming manager at the Wheeler Centre.
