[In Run Softly, Go Fast] Davy, 19, begins writing to analyze why he hardly seems to care about his father's untimely death. In a disjointed style appropriate to his youth and confusion about his reaction to the loss, Davy chronicles his struggle with his father, Leo…. On reading his ruminations at the end of the book, Davy discovers what most young readers would have sensed earlier: he'd left things out, the story had two sides! The introspective style is more irritating here than entertaining. The emphasis is on feeling over action and the result is often tepid. This is participatory literature over-obviously designed to make youngsters see to the other side of the generation gap. The author's scheme is to create a narration flawed by the subjectivity of the narrator, and she does it successfully. The result, however, is critical ambivalence and doubtful tolerance from the intended audience.

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Jean C. Thompson, in a review of "Run Softly, Go Fast," in School Library Journal, an appendix to Library Journal, Vol. 17, No. 6, February, 1971, p. 70.