Young Adult Adventure Novel; Endorsed by David Bellamy and Paula Boock; Shortlisted for “CanRead 2000; 2003. Re-published by Wings Press, USA; ‘Golden Wings Award’ May 2003 “Run for the Trees” is an exciting YA adventure of sabotage and intrigue, self-reliance and courage, that takes you on a breathless trip from Wellington (NZ’s capital city) to West Coast wasps’ nests and back to the Capital’s Beehive (Parliament). Thirteen-year-old Ben Costas finds himself alone when his mother goes on holiday with the ‘axe-murderer’ and his uncle, an eccentric eco-protester, disappears. Add to the mix a bossy runaway called Ange, two tenacious thugs, and a geriatric ‘greenie’. Ben’s struggles to reunite with Uncle Rick at an anti-logging protest culminate in a scary race to expose political corruption and save the native forest from exploitation. There are two central themes to this story: Ben’s journey to self-esteem despite (or maybe because of) his dyslexia; and the crime of native forest felling.