RUNNING WITH IVAN

Yearning to escape the new family he never wanted, thirteen-year-old Leo Arnold is transported to wartime Europe where he must draw on his courage to save himself and those around him. 

From award-winning author Suzanne Leal comes a gripping timeslip novel inspired by true stories.

Thirteen-year-old Leo Arnold hates his life. He doesn't want a new school, a new house or a new family. And he definitely doesn't want to be sharing a room with his new stepbrother, Cooper.

What Leo wants is to be somewhere else, far away. So when he uncovers an old music box and turns the key, he is astonished to find himself in Prague, surrounded by whispers and fears of a second world war. A war that ended decades ago.

In Prague, Leo meets Ivan, a Czech boy, and the two become friends. But when World War Two finally erupts, the unimaginable becomes real and the boys are imprisoned. Fearing the worst, Leo and Ivan frantically search for an escape. A search that sends them running.

Running against time.
Running for their lives.

Notable Book, The Children’s Book Council of Australia, 2024

Shortlisted, 2023 NSW  History Awards - Young People’s History Prize

Shortlisted, 2023 Historical Novel Prize - CYA Category

Longlisted, Book Links 2024 Award for Children’s Historical Fiction

Would you like to use Running with Ivan as a school text? HarperCollins has provided teachers’ notes for use in the classroom.

Would you like to read the first 3 chapters for free?

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Suzanne’s inspiration for the novel . . .

I could never have written Running with Ivan were it not for Fred (Bedřich) Perger, my landlord and neighbour, who also became my close friend.

Born in Prague in 1923, as a teenager Fred had been sent to the Jewish ghetto of Theresienstadt, where he stayed for eighteen months before being transported to the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Dachau.

After we’d been neighbours for some years, Fred agreed to tell me his wartime story in detail. Because he had a close to photographic memory, he was able to describe his life with remarkable precision. For over a year we sat down once a week to record the interviews I later transcribed. During this time, Fred answered all my questions, no matter how difficult or personal and, in the end, the transcript ran to over two hundred pages. It was the most invaluable tool and extraordinary gift when I came to write Running with Ivan.

WOULD YOU LIKE SUZANNE TO VISIT YOUR SCHOOL?

A highly experienced presenter, Suzanne loves meeting readers and doing school visits. 

Running with Ivan is an exciting time travel adventure of two boys who love to run. Written for middle-grade readers (9-13 years) and inspired by real historical events in wartime Europe, it’s a compelling and moving story of friendship, resilience, survival and hope.

To set up a time for a school visit, contact Suzanne.

Reviews for Running With Ivan

  • ‘Young readers will catch their breath as they hurtle through the pages of this pulsing time-travel adventure about two boys who love to run. A unique and unexpected friendship between Leo and Ivan reaches across a dark gulf of history where the stakes couldn’t be higher, and they both, in their own ways, find themselves running for their lives. Past meets present on equal terms in this dramatic, big-hearted story, told with all of Suzanne Leal’s characteristic wisdom and tenderness.’

    Ursula Dubosarsky

  • ‘This is a book in the very best tradition of the time slip, of one era seeping into another, one culture and dangerous set of events invading another, to bring a sequence of wonderfully perilous and sometimes odious escapades to the development of a boy ... Its radiance, its affirmation of life, will enchant children and adults with the improbable fables of the century now gone, and whose truths we have not always affirmed.’

    Tom Keneally, AO

  • 'A mysterious music box draws a troubled boy from 1990s Australia into the terrifying world of children trapped in the relentless advance of Nazi domination in Europe ... With meticulous research worn lightly, vivid characters and deft switching from present to past, Suzanne Leal weaves a novel that is both an exciting time-slip story and a moving exploration of courage, friendship and commitment. And it finishes on a most satisfying twist!’

    Sophie Masson, AM

  • ‘Running with Ivan is a remarkable feat of storytelling for children in their middle years. The narrative never lags as it cleverly brings hope into the grief-tinged present of a young boy from, of all places, the horror of Hitler’s Germany. Leo’s compassion and determination don’t just bring him success on the running track, they carry him to victory in life itself.’

    James Moloney

MORE REVIEWS FOR RUNNING WITH IVAN

BRISBANE WRITERS FESTIVAL

Suzanne Leal’s time slip novel, Running with Ivan, was inspired by the wartime stories of her Czech-Jewish neighbours. In this session, Suzanne will talk about the magic of using real stories to create your own novel. 60 minutes duration.

FULL REVIEWS FOR RUNNING WITH IVAN

Having previously won the Nib People’s Choice Prize for her historical adult novel The Deceptions, Suzanne Leal tackles a similar era in her first book for younger readers, a time slip novel that jumps between modern day Australia and the lives of a Czechoslovakian family during World War II. Following the death of Leo’s mother two years earlier, his dad has remarried and they’re moving into a new house complete with two new step-brothers. Lumped in with bullying, belligerent Connor, Leo tries desperately to escape his new reality. With a few turns of the key of his mother’s old music box, a German tune begins to play and Leo moves back in time, meeting a young boy around his own age named Ivan in the early 1930s. Every time Leo goes back to Ivan and his family, they are more affected by Adolf Hitler’s rise, eventually being sent to the Theresienstadt ghetto. Focusing on this lesser known Czech history brings a new angle to a well-trodden time period, and the personal research that Leal was able to access through her Jewish-Czech neighbours shines through. Jumping several years between Leo’s visits, Leal moderates the intensity of the narrative for the age group without losing any of the pacing or suspense. Back in the modern day, Leo’s experiences in history gradually give him the skills to cope with his difficult family situation. Immersive and sensitive historical fiction, Running with Ivan is perfectly pitched for readers 10 to 12; imagine The Messenger crossed with Playing Beatie Bow.

Annie Waters sells books, writes about books and podcasts about books. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.
22 November 2022

Thirteen-year-old Leo finds himself in challenging circumstances: not just those of a new school, a new home and family but, worst of all, sharing a room with a bullying stepbrother.

But when he winds up his mother’s old music box, he travels back in time to 1930s Prague, a city on the brink of war. Here he finds a friend in the entitled Ivan – until the music stops, when Leo is suddenly thrown back to his own time and its unwelcome realities.

Intrigued, perplexed (and frightened) by his adventure, but desperate to escape his situation, Leo plays the music box to return to Ivan’s time, only to witness the rise of Hitler in Europe and the Second World War – the exact period he is currently studying in school. When war finally breaks out, Leo and Ivan find themselves running for their lives.

Running with Ivan is award-winning author Suzanne Leal’s debut novel for upper primary and lower secondary readers. This compelling time-slip novel of friendship and incredible courage, inspired by real historical events, is intensely gripping and suspenseful but sensitively narrated – and there’s a brilliant twist at the very end that I’m dying to share but won’t! For ages 10+.

Reviewed by Athina Clarke, Readings
2 February 2023

When thirteen-year-old Leo has to move house, school and seemingly his whole life to live with his new stepfamily, things are really not going great for him. The worst part is having to share a room with his new stepbrother Cooper, who constantly bullies him.

Leo seeks refuge in a small room off the garage and when he plays an old music box, he is transported back in time to Prague before the onset of World War II. Leo has learnt about the war at school, and he tries to warn Ivan and his Jewish family of the impending doom.

Each time Leo travels back it is for a longer period, and time has marched forward - so as Ivan grows older Leo remains thirteen. Things, of course, get much worse and Ivan’s family are split up, and Ivan and Leo experience the horrors of an internment camp. At one time, Leo and Ivan also work for the Germans as runners, sending messages around the town and it is through this work that Leo’s running abilities increase – enough for him to complete in top level athletics back in his own time.

Can Leo possibly hope to keep Ivan alive until the end of the war?

This is a terrific novel that through the use of a timeslip gives us both a view of the challenges of modern teenage life, and the extreme danger faced by a Jewish teenager during World War II.

Containing themes of war, stepfamilies, survival and hope, this is an intriguing story for those in upper primary and lower secondary.

Reviewed by Rob, Lamont Books.
February 2023

Fiction Pick of the Week

Suzanne Leal’s debut children’s book is a time-slip novel. It’s as fully imagined an adventure asRuth Park’s Playing Beatie Bow, with the same timeless potential.

Thirteen-year-old Leo wants to be anywhere but home. His mother died two years back, his dadremarried, and he’s been forced to share a room with his bullying stepbrother, Cooper. When hediscovers an old music box and plays it, Leo shifts back in time to Prague on the cusp of WorldWar II – a period he’s studying in history class. He makes a new friend, Ivan, but is soonreturned to his own timeline and its miseries. Desperate to go back, Leo tries the box again andfinds the Czech capital under Nazi occupation. In mortal danger, Ivan and Leo must find a wayto escape with their lives.

Running with Ivan is suspenseful and involving children’s literature that vividly imagines thenightmare of history, while remaining sensitive to the age of its readership.

Cameron Woodhead and Fiona Capp
Sydney Morning Herald, February 2023

From award-winning author, Suzanne Leal, comes her first novel for middle-grade readers, a gripping timeslip novel inspired by true stories.

Yearning to escape the new family he never wanted, thirteen-year-old Leo Arnold is transported to wartime Europe where he must draw on his courage to save himself and those around him.

Running with Ivan tackles the well-trodden and difficult time period of the Holocaust through the eyes of a young boy in 2002. The story opens with Leo going through quite an upheaval – moving in with his stepfamily only two years after his mother passed away. In fact, Leo Arnold hates this new life. He doesn’t want a new school, a new house, or a new family. Cooper and Troy aren’t the nicest of stepbrothers, often ganging up and bullying Leo when the adults aren’t looking. To make matters worse, Leo is forced to squeeze his bed into the corner of the bedroom he shares with the belligerent Cooper, while the rest of his former life is packed away in boxes in the storage room.

Leo doesn’t feel like he belongs, so he keeps everything to himself – his worries, his grief, and his growing resentment. The only escape he finds is through competitive running and a small hideaway connected to the storage room containing the remnants of his life with his mother. What Leo wants is to be somewhere else, far away. So, when he uncovers his mother’s old music box and turns the key, he is astonished to find himself meeting a young boy named Ivan in Prague 1934, surrounded by whispers and fears of a second world war – a war that ended decades ago.

Leal is the author of the adult novels The Teacher’s Secret and Border Street. She won the Nib People’s Choice Prize for The Deceptions, which was her first foray into writing about the Holocaust. Now, Leal tackles this same topic for children in Running with Ivan by deftly slipping backward and forwards through time. Her personal research uses elements from her interviews with her neighbour, a real-life Holocaust survivor, which layers the narrative with a current of authenticity and immediacy. Running with Ivan seamlessly balances the serious content with careful sensitivity but never sacrifices the suspense that keeps young readers turning the pages.

At its heart is the beautiful growing friendship between Leo and Ivan, forged with courage and commitment amongst the very real danger of the past. It’s this friendship that helps Ivan to stay strong, and in turn, encourages Leo to be honest with himself and finally confront his family about how he feels. An unexpected twist brings the narrative full circle, making for an immensely satisfying ending.

Immersive and moving, Running with Ivan is perfect for history buffs and adventure lovers aged 10+. We couldn’t recommend it more.

Better Reading
February 2023