Beautiful Scars ─ A Life Redefined

The updated edition of the 2016 Benjamin Franklin Award winner for Best Inspirational Book!

Kilee Brookbank was a typical sixteen-year-old, but her last ordinary day erupted in an explosion that consumed her house, burning forty-five percent of her body and sending her to the brink of death.

After thirty-eight days of surgeries, skin grafts, physical therapy, and excruciating pain, Kilee had to discover how to live again.

She faced her journey with determination, strength, and a positive attitude that inspired not only her community, but people around the world.

Now a thriving college student, Kilee has become an author, advocate, and philanthropist focused on helping other young burn survivors and their families. Her charity, the Kilee Gives Back Foundation, has raised more than $100,000 for Shriners Hospitals for Children-Cincinnati in just two years, and Kilee has partnered with Shriners Hospitals to promote its national Be Burn Aware campaign.

Told together by Kilee and her mom, Lori, Beautiful Scars: A Life Redefined is a story of recovery, healing, and hope, reminding us all that we’re never powerless, never alone, and that each challenge we face helps make us the people we are meant to be.

Kilee Brookbank is a college student, shoe fanatic, animal lover – and burn survivor. Severely injured when a gas leak caused her house to explode in November 2014, Kilee was hospitalized for thirty-eight days before returning home to a life of new challenges and a new “normal.” Kilee, who now attends Xavier University, is creating her future with strength and determination that inspire everyone she meets. She and her family formed the Kilee Gives Back Foundation in 2015 to support other families through times of crisis, and Kilee is devoted to paying forward the generosity and kindness she received from her community and from around the world. Lori Highlander is, first and foremost, proud mom to daughter Kilee and son Cameron. Lori has spent twenty years as an executive in the alcohol and drug addiction field and has witnessed first-hand the impact of information and inspiration on the healing process. In 2014, Lori’s daughter, Kilee Brookbank, was severely burned in a house explosion. Kilee’s resilience and Cameron’s strength compelled Lori to launch KiCam Projects, creating an avenue to bring light to powerful stories of survival with the goal of supporting charitable endeavors and organizations. Additionally, Lori and her family formed the Kilee Gives Back Foundation, a nonprofit inspired by the family’s personal experience. Lori lives in Georgetown, Ohio, with Kilee and Cameron; her husband, Wade; and her stepsons, Collin and Houstin.