Running Wild

Written by Michael Morpurgo

Narrated by Michael Morpurgo

An epic and heart-rending jungle adventure from the bestselling author of Kaspar and Born to Run.

For Will and his mother, going to Indonesia isn't just a holiday. It's an escape, a new start, a chance to put things behind them - things like the death of Will's father.

And to begin with, it seems to be just what they both needed. But then Oona, the elephant Will is riding on the beach, begins acting strangely, shying away from the sea. And that's when the tsunami comes crashing in, and Oona begins to run. Except that when the tsunami is gone, Oona just keeps on running.

With nothing on his back but a shirt and nothing to sustain him but a bottle of water, Will must learn to survive deep in the jungle. Luckily, though, he's not completely alone…

He's got Oona.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Sep 3, 2009
• ISBN: 9780007334391

Michael Morpurgo

Michael Morpurgo is one of Britain’s best-loved writers for children. He has written over 130 books including War Horse, which was adapted for a hugely successful stage production by the National Theatre and then, in 2011, for a film directed by Steven Spielberg. Michael was Children’s Laureate from 2003 to 2005. The charity Farms for City Children, which he founded thirty years ago with his wife Clare, has now enabled over 70,000 children to spend a week living and working down on the farm. His enormous success has continued with his most recent novels Flamingo Boy and The Snowman, inspired by the classic story by Raymond Briggs. He was knighted in 2018 for services to literature and charity.

Reviews for Running Wild

[jonfaith · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Read this today riding back from Chicago. There are nods to both the procedural form as well as a fairy tale. There is a massacare of all the adults at a gated community outside of Reading. All of the children are missing. A psychologist from the Home Office investigates the murder/kidnapping and explores the estate, itself a community of isolated sanity. The protagonist later concludes that within such, "madness is the only freedom." Ballard succeeds again in casting an eerie hue on the mechanisms of our civilization. Almsot 20 years old Running Wild anticipates the schism between the (virtual) hyperconnections of our lives and the physical barriers we erect for safety and integrity.

Running Wild is likely now to change anyone's life but it remains a sage cautionary tale, being germane to ongoing efforts at exclusivity.

[duchenef · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Un assez "petit" Ballard dans la forme, même si le fond annonce de façon intéressante (la nouvelle est de la fin des années 1980) ses romans actuels.

[hughjasole-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sometimes feels a little slap-dash. Very interesting premise. Reminds me some of The Handmaid's Tale (Atwood)

[giovannigf · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I really love JG Ballard sometimes, but this one is one of his weaker efforts. Its "surprise" ending is predictable from reading the jacket blurb alone.

[bgem_4 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Awesome book, had me hooked from the first page and was hard for me to put down. I just love how the story built up into a climax. However, i do admit that I suspected after a few pages into the book that the children were guilty.

[iftyzaidi · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Its a familiar Ballard theme, but its short and sharp and well worth a read.

[g33kgrrl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A quick read. The concept is interesting. I'm not sure if the twist was supposed to actually be a twist or not - my guess is no. I don't think the point of the book is the "surprise;" I think the point is the idea behind it. That the environment would inevitably produce this outcome, but that society was not prepared to deal with that and of course cannot accept it - and the same things may(will) continue to happen.The format was also outstanding.

[bhowell_35 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A very clever short novella, chilling and disturbing. I read it one sitting. I cannot possibly give away this beautiful Hutchinson 1st edition with illustrations by Janet Woolley, 1988.

[isabelx_21 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The camera leaves the gatehouse and sets off along The Avenue, the tree-lined central drive of the estate. The handsome mansions sit above their ample front lawns, separated from each other by screens of ornamental shrubs and dry-stone walls. The light is flat but remarkably even, a consequence of the generous zoning densities (approx. two acres per house) and the absence of those cheap silver firs which cast their bleak shadows across the mock-Tudor facades of so many executive estates in the Thames Valley. As well, though, there is an antiseptic quality about Pangbourne Village, as if these company directors, financiers and television tycoons have succeeded in ridding their private Parnassus of every strain of dirt and untidiness. Here, even the drifting leaves look as if they have too much freedom. Thirteen children once lived in these houses, but it is hard to visualize them at play. The murders and kidnappings that take place an exclusive gated estate in the commuter belt of Southern England stun the whole country. When police psychiatrist Dr. Richard Greville starts investigating the mysterious murders and kidnappings at the Pangbourne Village estate, he realises that the policeman who shows him round the estate has a bizarre theory about what happened that morning, and slowly comes to agree with him. Neither of them, however, is keen to push this unpopular theory too strongly as the authorities appear willfully blind in their refusal to countenance it, ignoring even the strongest evidence pointing towards it such as the link between Mark Sanger's hobby of making box-kites and the strange contraption used to murder one of the security guards. This unnerving novella is probably even more relevant now than when it was written, with helicopter parents filling every minute of their children's time with school-work and improving hobbies, too afraid to let them out of the house on their own.