Dirt Bike Runaway

by Matt Christopher

Peter runs away from his foster home ... and right into danger Peter is a genius with dirt bikes. He can take them apart, fix them up, and race them like a champ. But his skill with a bike can take him only so far - and when he runs away from his foster home, he realizes he's in way over his head. He gets mixed up with two dangerous strangers and soon finds himself neck and neck with trouble on and off the racetrack.

149 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Matt Christopher is the writer young readers turn to when they're looking for fast-paced, action-packed sports novels. He is the best-selling author of more than one hundred sports books for young readers.

Matt Christopher is America's bestselling sports writer for children, with more than 100 books and sales approaching six million copies. In 1992, Matt Christopher talked about being a children's book author.

"I became interested in writing when I was 14, a freshman in high school. I was selling magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post, Country Gentleman, and Liberty, and I would read the stories, particularly the adventure and mystery stories, and think how wonderful it would be to be able to write stories and make a living at it. I also read detective, horror, aviation, and sports stories and decided I would try writing them myself.

Determined to sell, I wrote a detective story a week for 40 weeks, finding the time to marry, work, and play baseball and basketball before I sold my first story in 1941, "The Missing Finger Points," for $50 to Detective Story magazine.

After writing and selling children's sports stories to magazines, I decided to write a baseball book for children. I was living in Syracuse, New York at the time, working at General Electric. I spoke about my idea to the branch librarian. She was immediately interested and told me that they needed sports stories badly. So I came up with my first children's book, The Lucky Baseball Bat. I submitted it to Little, Brown, and the book was published in 1954.

I'm sure that playing sandlot baseball and then semiprofessional baseball with a Class C club in the Canadian-American League influenced my writing. I had my own personal experiences, and I saw how other players reacted to plays, to teammates' and fans' remarks and innuendoes, to managers' orders, etc. All these had a great influence on my writing. My love of the game helped a lot, too, of course.

Out of all the books I've written, my favorite is The Kid Who Only Hit Homers. It's a fantasy, but the main character in it could be real. There are a lot of boys who would love to play baseball but, for some reason, cannot. The only difference between a real-life boy and Sylvester Coddmyer III is the appearance of a character named George Baruth, whom only Sylvester can see and who helps Sylvester become a good ballplayer.

I've written many short stories and books for both children and adults, and find that writing for children is really my niche. Being the eldest of nine children (seven boys and two girls), I've lived through a lot of problems many children live through, and I find these problems excellent examples to include in my books.

Sports have made it possible for me to meet many people with all sorts of life stories, on and off the field, and these are grist for this writer's mill. I'm far beyond playing age now, but I manage to go to both kids' and adult games just to keep up with them, and keep them fresh in my mind.Very few things make me happier than receiving fan letters from boys and girls who write that they had never cared for reading until they started to read my books. That is just about the ultimate in writing for children. I would never trade it for another profession."

Matt Christopher died on September 27, 1997. His legacy is now being carried on by his sons, Duane and Dale Christopher.

Reviews

[Dylan Rice · Rating 3 out of 5]

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sorry,i have a annoying 6 year old liveing with me

[Keegan Huffman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like when dex wins the race and everyone was so excited

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book I read was Dirt Bike Runaway which was written by Matt Christopher.
My favorite character was Peter because he was good at dirt bike riding. There were other characters like Dexter Pasina, Jesse Kutter, and Peter's sister. They were the main characters.
My favorite part was when Peter and Dexter weren't friends until Dexter asked Peter to work for him. The job was to steal car parts. Peter said no. They started to argue and then they started to fight. Dexter beat him up and knocked him out.
Peters best friend was Giff. They rode motocross against Dexter. At the end of the story Dexter and Peter became good friends.
I would recommend this book to young adult, males because it is about a male character and involves fighting and dirt biking. I would also rate this book at a 4 out of 5 because there were some parts that just didn't go with the moral of the story.

[Ethen Huebner · Rating 4 out of 5]

good book

[Zander · Rating 5 out of 5]

it was awesome

[Cole Bergeron]

Amazing and easy book to read

[Brant Bissen]

good

[Keelan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peter is my favorite character met boy named Giff.
What surprised me the most was that they did not get along very well.
I will not change the ending because Giff said “don’t forget something.”

[Dayton Eagle · Rating 5 out of 5]

i thought it was pretty good

[Nathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book written by Matt Christopher is a very good book and I highly recommend that you read it.This book mostly talks about this kid named Peter that ran away from his foster home in Florida and now has a dirt bike that he races sound the big state of Florida.Peter can do anything to a dirt bike from building and taking it apart or making bikes run again.He hopes that the things that he knows about different bikes will help him out in racing bikes around the state.This book not only talks about dirt bikes and things like that,but it's also talks about Peters life and how he try's to get though living on his own without being fostered at a home.This book is a very good book to read and if you like books like these then you should read it is a very great book

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great boys book.

[Brandon mendez]

This book is about peter running away from his home with his bike then he realises that running away cause more troble than anythinga and it will cost more problems.

[Ben Mitchell · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was short. Only about 100 pages. Otherwise it was pretty good.

[Lucas H · Rating 2 out of 5]

It wasn't that good of book I really did not like it that much. If you like dirt bikes you should read it but if you don't i wouldn't recommend it to a friend.

[Laine Hauge · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about peter running away from his home with his bike then he realises that running away cause more troble than anythinga and it will cost more problems.

[Becky Johnson ruiz]

It was ok. The book was about racing over and over.my son loved it though and that is why I read it.

[Cynthia Sherman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great details and fun to read. The readers will feel as if they are in the scenes with the characters. Well written and enjoyable.

[Brandon Lauder · Rating 3 out of 5]

i like the book becausei like dirtbikes

[Blake G.]

I finshed this book in three hours