Transferred between foster homes for most of his life, twelve-year-old Corey Brinkman has developed a bad habit of running away. His new foster parents, Wilma and Ben Howard, are determined to make their home his for life, but old habits are hard to break. Wilma takes Corey to the Calgary Zoo for his annual visit with his birth mother, despite her discomfort about Tina Brinkman and the fever Corey is pretending not to have. When Corey goes missing at the zoo, his two mothers are forced into an uneasy truce in the search for their son. "Running Toward Home" reveals the complex relationships surrounding a foster child, and the fine line between protection and standing in the way of life lessons. For twenty-four hours the Calgary Zoo becomes the entire world, and the lines between the nurturing instincts in animals and humans become blurred.