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Book Review By drury5@rogers.com
Run Baby Run by Nicky Cruz

Nicky Cruz is a violent, out-of-control young boy who is sent to New York to live with his older brother in 1950's Brooklyn. A Puerto Rican immigrant with no respect for authority or any knowledge of the English language, Nicky drops out of school within weeks of arriving in New York and is driven out of his brothers' home as well.

Nicky finds himself desperate with no food or a place to live, and he nervously commits his first robbery to survive. On the streets with no friends or family to turn too, Nicky eventually joins the infamous 'Mau Mau' street gang, who become his 'family'. Nicky would spend several years in the gang, being its President during the gangs' most violent and often recorded period of criminal activity in the mid to late 1950's.

In 1958, a Pennsylvania preacher named David Wilkerson meets with the Mau Mau's and is nearly killed by Nicky, who decides to attend one of Wilkersons' arena meetings so that the gang can rob the offering. Instead, Wilkerson moves Cruz to attempt to abandon his violent, drug and sex filled gang existence and change his life into something positive.      


Plot & Themes
job/profession:
Ethnic/Relig. of subject (inside)
Gender/Class story? - immigrant story
Job/profession/poverty story Yes
If this is a culture clash: - minority culture living in majority area
Ethnic/regional/gender Yes
Period of greatest activity? - 1950+

Subject of Biography
Gender - Male
Profession/status:
Ethnicity - Hispanic/Latinic
Nationality - American

Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings? - 10 ()
United States Yes
The US: - Northeast
Century: - 1960's-1970's

Writing Style
Book makes you feel? - concerned
Graphic sex in book? Yes
What kind of sex: - -
How much dialogue in bio? - roughly even amounts of descript and dialog
How much of bio focuses on most famous period of life? - 0-25% of book
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