Trustpilot
You may know part of this story from David Wilkerson's The Cross and the Switchblade. But Run Baby Run tells it from the other side — and that change of perspective makes it something altogether different. Premier Christianity lists it among the books that have shaped the Church, and it is not hard to see why.
Nicky Cruz grew up in Puerto Rico, the son of occultist parents who told him he was born of the devil. By the time he arrived in New York as a teenager, he was carrying a world of violence and rejection inside him. He became the war lord of the Mau Maus — one of New York's most feared street gangs — and found in brutality a way of asserting the existence he had never been given.
Then David Wilkerson turned up on a street corner and told him God loved him. Cruz's response was contempt, then threats — and then, eventually, something that broke through every defence he had. Run Baby Run is raw and unsparing about both the darkness and what happened afterwards. It is one of the most honest accounts of conversion in Christian literature, because Cruz never pretends the old self simply vanished.
Want to know more about the full 100 Books list then read our blog article here.
About the Author: Nicky Cruz (born 1938) went on to found Nicky Cruz Outreach, an international evangelistic ministry. He has written several other books, including Soul Obsession and One Holy Fire, and has spent decades speaking to young people in crisis around the world.
