The Art of Running Away

by Sabrina Kleckner

Overview

Twelve-year-old Maisie is an artist. When she’s in front of her sketchbook or apprenticing at Glenna’s Portraits, the family-run art shop her grandmother started, the world makes sense. She doesn’t think about Calum, her brother who mysteriously left home and cut ties with her family six years ago, or her parents’ insistence that she “broaden her horizons” and try something new—something that isn’t art.

But when Glenna’s Portraits falls on hard times, Maisie’s plan to take over the shop when she’s older and become a lifelong artist starts to crumble. In desperation to make things right, Maisie runs away to London to reconnect with her adult brother, hoping he might be the key to saving the shop. But as Maisie learns about her family’s past from Calum, she starts to rethink everything she’s ever known. Maisie must decide not only if saving her family’s art shop is worth it, but if she can forgive her parents for the mistakes they've made.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781631635779
Publisher:	North Star Editions
Publication date:	11/16/2021
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	8 - 15 Years

About the Author

Sabrina Kleckner is the author of The Art of Running Away, a middle grade contemporary novel about family and identity. She began writing at the age of twelve, and is grateful to not be debuting with the angsty assassin book she toiled over in her teens. When she is not writing, she can be found teaching ESL or gushing about her three cats to anyone who will listen.

Editorial Reviews

"A gentle exploration of pain, love, and acceptance." —Kirkus Reviews

"A quick and an emotional read that draws readers into the story of these characters...I truly enjoyed this book." —School Library Connection

"With many emotional scenes involving themes of identity, family, passion, and forgiveness, Kleckner’s charming debut features a mature young heroine that readers will enjoy following as she manages familial conflict and resolution." —Booklist

From the Publisher

2021-09-29
Budding 12-year-old artist Maisie is unhappy when her parents abruptly decide she should leave upstate New York to spend the summer in Edinburgh, Scotland, with her aunt.

Her frustration evolves into amazement when her elder brother, Calum, who ran away 6 years ago, turns up on her aunt’s doorstep and convinces Maisie to instead spend the summer with him in London, where he is a university undergraduate. Since Calum has rarely been mentioned at home, she had no idea why he’d left or where he’d gone—so it’s baffling to learn that he has remained close to their Aunt Lisa. But that confusion is nothing compared to her fury when she learns the real reason behind Calum’s absence, a devastating secret that leads her to reevaluate everything she thought she knew about her family. Just as Maisie is sure she can fix the financial problems that threaten her family’s custom portrait painting business, she’s confident she can reunite Calum and her parents. It’s only with wise, gentle advice from Rose and Benji, who are close to Calum, that she begins to understand that it’s Calum’s business—not hers—to decide when and how to patch things up, making for a believably nuanced and unresolved conclusion. This debut sensitively portrays the fallout caused by family rifts. Most characters default to White; Benji is Japanese British.

A gentle exploration of pain, love, and acceptance. (Fiction. 9-13)

Kirkus Reviews