Running Scared Author:Jane Morton KIRKUS REVIEW — A car is standing with keys in the ignition, and disaffected 15-year-old Dave Miller--""Not old enough to drive, not old enough to quit school""--takes off, only to find himself, harrowing minutes later, in the police lock-up for auto theft. That's the credible part; the rest is a stock story of parental disapproval, a supportive ... more »counselor, and redemption through long-distance racing. Dave's big moments--before his final victory in the junior-high meet--find him leveling non-defensively with an English teacher and a prospective employer (to be able, in both cases, to take part in the meet) and standing up to a bullying dope-pusher (for the sake of a terrorized waif--the book's one sensational/sentimental lapse). Therapeutically sound, then, but pat, arid fiction.« less