Rarely do we find any child out there in the world who has not at one point or another in their young lives wished to be an adult. To escape the limitations of childhood and get to the stage of being "free" to make their own decisions. It is a child's rite of passage, so to speak, to learn the appreciation for childhood that everyone loses as they step into adulthood. Yet no one can define that moment for a child. They must arrive at that conclusion themselves. As Elliot Page once said, "When we're growing up there are all sorts of people telling us what to do when really what we need is space to work out who to be."
In the latest Christian Children's Book, The Runaway Clock, the question of growing up and faith comes into play heavily, but with a twist. When three siblings begin wishing that they could freeze time and be a kid forever to escape the "horrors" of adulthood, they instead find their wish only half working. Upon waking up, they discover ten years have come to pass, and the children move around as ghosts looking not at the living, but the future that awaits them. As time moves on without them, the children must learn not to escape adulthood, but bring the wonder and delight of childlike hopefulness and faith into their adult lives.
