Zack W. Van's Blog
January 3, 2012
This is why I wrote Inanimate Heroes
Today, while I was browsing Facebook, I saw a post that really caught my attention. In a tribute page for Jamey Rodemeyer, one of the kids the book is dedicated to, I noticed a disturbing comment. In a post about wishing everyone a merry Christmas and happy new year, one comment read “Well maybe his parents would have if he hadn’t been so selfish.” Obviously this blunt ignorance really upset me. However, I realized that people like this were the exact reason I wrote Inanimate Heroes.
We can't battle teenage suicide by calling them selfish. Instead, we need to show these kids how important they are and that it gets better. Was what Jamey did right? Of course not, and I’ll bet every day his parents wished he hadn’t. But he obviously was not in the right mind at the time to make good choices, and that was due to his constant hell of bullying. It’s very easy to say what you would do in a situation you have never been in. This book was written not only for bullied youth to relate to, but to instill empathy in people who have never gone through this.
Thank you.
Zack W. Van
Inanimate Heroes
We can't battle teenage suicide by calling them selfish. Instead, we need to show these kids how important they are and that it gets better. Was what Jamey did right? Of course not, and I’ll bet every day his parents wished he hadn’t. But he obviously was not in the right mind at the time to make good choices, and that was due to his constant hell of bullying. It’s very easy to say what you would do in a situation you have never been in. This book was written not only for bullied youth to relate to, but to instill empathy in people who have never gone through this.
Thank you.
Zack W. Van
Inanimate Heroes
