Running With Ivan

Thirteen-year-old Leo finds himself in challenging circumstances: not just those of a new school, a new home and family but, worst of all, sharing a room with a bullying stepbrother.

But when he winds up his mother’s old music box, he travels back in time to 1930s Prague, a city on the brink of war. Here he finds a friend in the entitled Ivan – until the music stops, when Leo is suddenly thrown back to his own time and its unwelcome realities.

Intrigued, perplexed (and frightened) by his adventure, but desperate to escape his situation, Leo plays the music box to return to Ivan’s time, only to witness the rise of Hitler in Europe and the Second World War – the exact period he is currently studying in school. When war finally breaks out, Leo and Ivan find themselves running for their lives.

Running with Ivan is award-winning author Suzanne Leal’s debut novel for upper primary and lower secondary readers. This compelling time-slip novel of friendship and incredible courage, inspired by real historical events, is intensely gripping and suspenseful but sensitively narrated – and there’s a brilliant twist at the very end that I’m dying to share but won’t! For ages 10+.