Runnerland Book

Runnerland is John Burns' first novel for young adults but, as the book editor of the Georgia Straight, Burns knows a thing or two about books and writing. He has crafted an engaging narrator and a powerful story of an artistic young man on the run. Runner, a homeless 14-year-old begging on the streets, wasn't always running. He was born Peter Weir, into a middle-class family with loving parents (or at least he thought he was). But after his father's sudden death, Runner finds an envelope in his father's desk that unlocks a family secret and his life folds "into itself like an origami version of hell." He gets on a bus that takes him to the West Coast and on a ferry that takes him even further. He cuts his hair, shoplifts a new black wardrobe, and hangs out in malls to keep warm. And he flees, not only physically but psychologically, into a world of whiteness that at first scares him but which he learns to inhabit and imbue with colour and life. His internal world, Runnerland, offers him shelter for a time, even as his life unravels. Taking on the name Runner in a harrowing initiation ceremony, Runner joins a tribe of street kids ruled by the charismatic but dangerous Dekman. Only when a fire destroys the Dickensian squat in which the teens have lived'and when Dekman makes an appearance in Runner's imaginary world and forces a tense confrontation'does Runner realize that he can make his own rules and reconnect on his own terms with his past life. Like Rebecca Godfrey and Carrie Mac, Burns peels back the genteel surface of a BC town and reveals a dark "second world." He is equally good at revealing the inner world of Runner's imagination. Runnerland, for both Runner and reader, is definitely worth a visit.

Reviewed by Brenda Halliday in Canadian Children's Book News
Winter 2008 VOL.31 NO.1