Book Review: Underrunners

Title: Underrunners

(Why is the picture blurry? Because Amazon is trying to sell new editions with different covers. This is what I physically own. I reserve the right to substitute newer editions if the first edition becomes rare.)

Author: Margaret Mahy

Date: 1992

Publisher: Penguin

ISBN: 0-670-84179-X

Length: 169 pages

Quote: “Tris would know Selsey Firebone was with him, moving as silently as only a trained outer-space alien-detecting secret agent can move.”

Eleven-year-old Tris has been making up the story of Selsey Firebone longer than he can remember. Now that his parents are separated, he and his father live near the beach, and he acts out adventures on the way home from school. He’s not told the story to his friends, though, so why does a new acquaintance from the local children’s shelter seem familiar with the story? Tris is about to become just a little bit of a detective and crimefighter, on a very junior level.

Part of the story takes place in the “underrunners,” tunnels of erosion along the coast of New Zealand. It’s possible, though dangerous, to play in these tunnels. Tris has played in them. In this story he’ll be caught up in a real adventure, in the tunnels, with the orphan, and an unpleasant person who really is out to get them...

For his age and size Tris ends up giving a good account of himself, showing both physical and emotional courage. Selsey Firebone turns out to be a real person, and Tris becomes “his” sidekick—although in the reality of the novel Selsey Firebone turns out to be a “her.”

I’m tempted to call this one a coming-of-age story, although Tris is still only eleven at the end. If Tris hasn’t quite become a man, at least he’s made a good study of two role models and learned how a man should or should not react to rejection by the woman he loves.

Shorter and simpler than Mahy’s brilliant Memory or numinous Tricksters, Underrunners might seem juvenile to some of Mahy’s teenaged readers. I’d guess, though, that any older teenagers who are willing to read about an eleven-year-old and a thirteen-year-old won’t be disappointed. Even adults who are in the mood  for a gentle, if not cozy, mystery where no one is actually murdered but the main characters are in some danger, may enjoy Underrunners.

As always when choosing a book to give to a child, know your student. Some eleven-year-olds or even nine-year-olds will be delighted by a Young-Adult-type novel with an eleven-year-old protagonist. Some eleven-year-olds enjoy stories that present people their age mainly as role-models-of-the-future for six-year-old readers, and others will like the teen-level vocabulary, the abstract thought, the dangers, and the insights in this book.

Unfortunately Margaret Mahy no longer has any use for the dollar she'd get if her books were still Fair Trade Books (if she were still alive). Her writing career seems painfully short to U.S. readers because she was quite old when she broke into the U.S. market. Anyway, most of her books can still be purchased from this web site for the usual price of $5 per book, $5 per package, and $1 per online payment. To set up a special multiple-book package, e-mail salolianigodagewi at the address shown at the very bottom of the screen. To pay by U.S. postal order, send $10 (for this book) or $25 (for four books of this size, shipped together) to Boxholder, P.O. Box 322. To order only this book with the convenience of Paypal, click: