BOY ON THE RUN

Desperate to cut loose from his overprotective divorced mother, twelve-year-old Nick splits on the way to his grandmother's summer place and spends several days ""on the bum"" on a nearby island. As Nick sleeps on the beach, acquires a dog and buys a used bicycle, and makes friends (his first) with a local boy and positive contact with a waitress, a cook and other passing adults, it comes out that he's been seeing a psychiatrist who considers him disturbed (once he threw $5000 worth of his mother's knickknacks out the apartment window, and then there were those tire slashing sprees) and that he sees the interlude as a chance to prove the doctor wrong, He succeeds, and the small tests he passes in the process are nicely, realistically everyday. But it would be easier to share Nick's concern and ultimate satisfaction in showing up the shrink if we were not reminded so often that that's what he's up to.