description: Eleven-year-old orphan Graham Robbertson lives in a group foster home run by the tough-minded but caring Mother Button. All Graham knows about his origins is that he was abandoned as a baby with his birth certificate pinned to his blanket. Over the years, he has built up an elaborate fantasy scenario about his birth mother that he replays in his mind so often it has become as real to him as the pungent vegetable water Mother Button forces the boys to drink to keep them healthy. His obsession with finding his mother is kick-started when Mother Button erroneously accuses him of “nicking” some food coupons. Graham blows up this minor squabble to the level of operatic tragedy, and runs off to London in the first of many searches for the mother he believes will give him all the love, understanding, and respect that he presumes only a birth mother can provide.
language: English
title: The Runaway
titlecomplete: The Runaway
ratings_count: 7
publisher: Scholastic Canada