Run Marco, Run

Marco Graham, the title character of this exciting adventure, is a 13-year-old student leading a quiet life in Columbia. Since his mother’s death, he lives alone with his father, a foreign journalist. His father’s latest investigation is into police corruption. As the drug war heats up the political climate, the kidnapping and ransom of foreigners is on the rise. One day at the market, burly men in red bandanas grab Marco and his father. Marco fights back, breaks free and runs away. Alone, penniless and afraid to go to the police, he decides that the only man who can rescue his dad is Robert Mendoza, who recently moved to Vancouver and dropped out of touch. Showing courage, ingenuity and tenacity, Marco sets out to track him down him. Along the way, he learns to trust his own instincts and develops new friendships in unlikely places.

When Marco’s father, a Canadian-Colombian journalist who exposes police corruption and drug cartels, is kidnapped in front of him, the 13-year-old boy embarks on a perilous voyage from his home in Buenaventura, Colombia, to Vancouver, Canada, in search of the one person he believes can free his father. “Coraje (courage)” is Marco’s mantra as he flees the kidnappers, stows away on a freighter bound for Canada and eludes authorities in Vancouver. The stakes are high in this fast-paced story, where an educated, middle-class boy becomes an injured, starved and indigent alien. Even well-intentioned Canadians cannot be trusted.

Run Marco Run would work well as an independent study novel for Grades 6 to 8. A social science approach could emphasize the cultural and economic differences evident between Buenaventura and Vancouver. Small weaknesses in the novel include expositoryheavy dialogue at the beginning and end of the book and a convenient recollection that helps Marco identify his father’s kidnappers. The descriptions of Marco’s route through Vancouver are particularly fun for readers who know the city.

When his father, a journalist, is kidnapped in Colombia, 13-yearold Marco barely escapes. Stowing away on a Vancouver-bound freighter, he heads to Canada where he hopes a good friend of his father will help him mount a rescue operation. Evading drug dealers and the “authorities” who would send him back to Colombia, Marco realizes that running away is sometimes the heroic thing to do. But can he save his father?