BANCKS, Tristan

On the run from police after they steal $7.2 million accidentally deposited into their bank account, twelve-year-old Ben's parents leave him and his younger sister Olive on their own in a creepy old cabin in the middle of the Australian bush. Ben (who only gradually learns what his parents have done) sees the irony in what has happened: his father, who runs a wrecking yard, "was a wrecker. That's what he did. He wrecked stuff…Cars, trucks, motorbikes, Ben's life, their family. Themselves. They wrecked themselves and they left Ben and Olive to deal with the mess." Ben finds a copy of My Side of the Mountain in the cabin, appropriate—and useful