Hit and Run. Norah McClintock. Markham, ON: Scholastic Canada, 2003. 232 pp., pbk., $6.99. ISBN 0-439-97418-6. Grades 8-11 / Ages 13-16. Review by Joan Marshall. *** /4

excerpt

I flung open the screen door so hard that it clattered against the brick. I burst into the house, feeling like my heart was going to explode in my chest.

"Geeze," Billy said. He appeared so suddenly in the doorway to the living room that I almost collided with him. "I thought we'd been hit by a tornado or something. Where have you been, anyway?"

"The cops are going to re open Mom's case," I told him. Riel is going to talk to them about it, get them to take another look at what happened."

"Yeah?" Billy didn't sound nearly as excited as I was. But then, the main things that excited him were a night out with his friends, a night in with his girlfriend, or the chance to make some easy money. "How did that happen?"

"I was talking to him. I told him about Mrs. Jhun. It turns out he didn't know about that. So he said he'd look into it."

"What about Mrs. Jhun?"

"She saw Mom the night she died."

I had the weird feeling that I was speaking a language Billy didn't understand. He was staring at me, but he didn't seem to be registering anything I was saying.

"What are you talking about, Mikey?" he said.

All of you know a Mike McGill, a 15 year old high school student who, although basically good at heart, avoids all schoolwork or involvement in activities that would help him escape the brand of "loser." Mike's father is long gone, and his mother was killed in a hit and run accident when he was eleven. His 21-year-old cousin, Billy, himself directionless and on the fringe of the law, takes custody of Mike, and it all slides downhill from there. Mike is never sure if there will be food; he is never supervised; Billy is usually absent. Mike never does his homework. Mike's friends involve him in a spontaneous bakery truck robbery, and he is unfortunately seen by his grocery store employer, Mr. Scorza, who dutifully turns him in to the police as he is concerned about the way Mike's life is going. Mike's teacher, Mr. Riel, a young cop turned teacher because he couldn't handle the pressure of police work, supports Mike and starts to re investigate the case of Mike's mother's death. Together they discover Billy's involvement (and that of his friends Lew and Dan) in a chop shop operation, the death of Mike's mother and the death of Mr. Jhun, the shop owner whose shop was robbed by the trio.

     Cornered by Billy and his friends, Mike is nearly killed but is rescued by Riel at the last possible moment. Riel ends up fostering Mike and providing for him a much more positive home.

     McClintock has again created an interesting protagonist whose situation will ring true for many of our students. At first Mike seems impulsive and immature, but, as he grows up, he realizes that Billy and his friends are leading fruitless, damaging lives. He commits himself to the security of Riel's down to earth common sense and support. His basic sense of right and wrong is strengthened the more he spends time with Riel, but, even at the beginning of the novel, he helps Mrs. Jhun in a thoughtful, considerate way. At times, during the bakery robbery for example, the reader sees a typical teenager and how easily discipline can break down. Mike also has a great, sarcastic voice typical of many teenage boys: "Was I supposed to settle with people I didn't even know, people who were going to get paid to look after me, foster parents who would just be counting the days until I turned eighteen? Settled. Right." Riel, the sympathetic teacher, is well drawn, with only one slip where he seems to be lecturing to Mike instead of conversing with him. Billy is particularly strong as a shiftless follower of the more sinister Dan and Lew.

     This is a good mystery, with the perpetrator of the hit and run gradually revealed to the reader and to Mike, a very tense climax and a satisfying ending where there is hope for Mike and Riel, the characters the reader has grown to like.

Recommended.

Joan Marshall is the teacher librarian at Fort Richmond Collegiate in Winnipeg, MB.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

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Published by The Manitoba Library Association ISSN 1201-9364

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