Module 12 - The Burn Journals

Summary:

Brent Runyon is a troubled teen.  He has attempted suicide many times and still feels like a failure.  He is a typical teenager going through normal ups and downs.  However, in his mind, the things he has done and seen are just too much for him.  He feels that he is causing others pain and that he should not live because of it.  Even the girl he likes is one that his friend already likes.  He hates himself for this too.  He just can’t seem to find a suitable place in life for himself and does not see why he should.  With his many attempts to commit suicide he finally decides on a sure fire way to get the job done.  He goes home and pours gasoline on his robe, puts it on and lights the match.  Even as his family is telling him it is going to be alright after they find him, he is mentally drained and still thinking about the things around him.  This journal is actually written by Brent Runyon himself. They are his accounts of the feelings he had that led up to the ultimate suicide attempt and how he tries to reexamine his life in an attempt to piece his life back together. 


APA Reference:


Runyon, B. (2004). The burn journals. New York, NY:  Random House, Inc.

My Impressions:

Yikes.  It just breaks my heart to know that there are people out there that feel so horrible about themselves that they feel they need to die or want to die.  It is also very tragic that many of them have people around them that don’t know what is happening or just don’t care.  It just makes me ill to think that people can be that ignorant.  I feel that anyone that has attempted suicide more than once should be heavily treated with therapy and other such methods.  No one should feel as if they are alone.  That is what Brent felt like.  He makes that statement that thousands of kids make every day and that is that no one understands them.  Some people found this book controversial and I just say they are ridiculous.  How on earth are some of these kids supposed to wake up every day and know they are not alone? Many of them can’t because they may not know anyone that is dealing with what they are.  This is a very sad and real occurrence.  Books like this teach reality and pain.  However, they also teach hope and forgiveness.  That is important because so many children do not get that at home and even if they do, a child’s life is not always easy.

Professional Reviews:

Booklist Review

On the sixteenth page of this incisive memoir, eighth-grader Brent Runyon drenches his bathrobe with gasoline and (“Should I do it? Yes.”) sets himself on fire. The burns cover 85 percent of his body and require six months of painful skin grafts and equally invasive mental-health rehabilitation. From the beginning, readers are immersed in the mind of 14-year-old Brent as he struggles to heal body and mind, his experiences given devastating immediacy in a first-person, present-tense voice that judders from uncensored teenage attitude and poignant anxiety (he worries about getting hard-ons during physical therapy) to little-boy sweetness. And throughout is anguish over his suicide attempt and its impact on his family: “I have this guilt feeling all over me, like oil on one of those birds in Alaska.” Runyon has, perhaps, written the defining book of a new genre, one that gazes as unflinchingly at boys on the emotional edge as Zibby O’Neal’s The Language of Goldfish (1980) and Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak (1999) do at girls. Some excruciatingly painful moments notwithstanding, this can and should be read by young adults, as much for its literary merit as for its authentic perspective on what it means to attempt suicide, and, despite the resulting scars, be unable to remember why. 0

O. (2004, June 1). [Review from the book The burn journals]. Available from Booklist Website:  http://www.booklistonline.com/The-Burn-Journals-Brent-Runyon/pid=228385

Library Uses:

a.       This account would be a great example used during lessons on entering adolescence and the everyday troubles that children face.  Many things are normal and it is important for people to realize they are NOT alone.

b.      This would be another book that could be used to share information about social services in their local community and to discuss options for those in trouble.