My Two Blankets

When a little girl nicknamed "Cartwheel" moves to a different country with her family to be safe she has a hard time adjusting to her new home.

Blankets is the story of a young man coming of age and finding the confidence to express his creative voice. Craig Thompson's poignant graphic memoir plays out against the backdrop of a Midwestern winterscape: finely-hewn linework draws together a portrait of small town life, a rigorously fundamentalist Christian childhood, and a lonely, emotionally mixed-up adolescence. Under an engulfing blanket of snow, Craig and Raina fall in love at winter church camp, revealing to one another their struggles with faith and their dreams of escape. Over time though, their personal demons resurface and their relationship falls apart. It's a universal story, and Thompson's vibrant brushstrokes and unique page designs make the familiar heartbreaking all over again. This groundbreaking graphic novel, winner of two Eisner and three Harvey Awards, is an eloquent portrait of adolescent yearning; first love (and first heartache); faith in crisis; and the process of moving beyond all of that. Beautifully rendered in pen and ink, Thompson has created a love story that lasts.

Based on the author's true story, this is the account of Iraqi refugee Samir, who spends nine years in an asylum center in the Netherlands. "Two Blankets, Three Sheets does for the beleaguered political asylum seeker stuck in legal limbo what Joseph Heller's Catch-22 did for the hapless soldier trapped in a military at war...Translated from the Dutch into nimble and conversational English by Jonathan Reeder...it is a tale for and of our time."--Rayyan Al-Shawaf, Los Angeles Review of Books Amsterdam Airport, 1998. Samir Karim steps off a plane from Vietnam, flushes his fake passport down the toilet, and requests asylum. Fleeing Iraq to avoid conscription into Saddam Hussein's army, he has spent seven years anonymously wandering through Asia. Now, safely in the heart of Europe, he is sent to an asylum center and assigned a bed in a shared dorm--where he will spend the next nine years. As he navigates his way around the absurdities of Dutch bureaucracy, Samir tries his best to get along with his 500 new housemates. Told with compassion and a unique sense of humor, this is an inspiring tale of survival, a close-up view of the hidden world of refugees and human smugglers, and a sobering reflection of our times.

Trapped in the deadly conflict between two cultures, a young native girl struggles to survive. In 1850, on the great Columbia River, a ten-year-old Nez Perce girl’s life is changed forever. Stolen and made a mistshimus—a slave—to the Chinook, Little Mouse struggles to escape only to be caught and beaten. Tracked and returned a third time, the chief of the local band, Tyee Running Blade, says he will kill her on her next attempt. She knows defeat at last and becomes Girl-With-No-Name, for as a mistshimus, she has no right to any property—not even a name. When she becomes a woman, her favors are sold to the Tyee’s son, Standing Bear. Unfortunately, they develop an affection for each other, something forbidden to a mistshimus and noble-born. She is cut from shoulder to wrist as punishment and sold to a white man, Marshall Johnston, to be his wife. So begin her struggles with a white man who does not care for her and a tribe for respect, earning a place in the history of the Chinook and her own name—Two Blankets. Two Blankets is a true heroine you can believe in. With only the weapons she possesses, her cleverness, integrity, and honesty, can she hope to prevail against a tribe which owns her, a husband who abuses her, and the oncoming flood of settlers to whom she is only an obstacle.

My Two Blanketsresonates in a special way with people who are seeking asylum. It is a story of the pain associated with being dislocated from home and the familiar. But also of friendship, hope and new beginnings. The Arabic/English edition of this beautiful story is a collaboration between the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) in Melbourne, the Readings Foundation, publisher Hardie Grant Egmont and the author and illustrator. Arabic was chosen as a language because it is an important community language in Australia and among the top three languages spoken by people seeking asylum who are members of the ASRC. The translation was created by multi-lingual members of the ASRC, who worked with a professional translator in a workshop setting; a process that also assisted their English language learning, and provided insight into possible career paths in translating and interpreting. This new bilingual edition ofMy Two Blanketswill encourage parents to read with their children by allowing them to draw on both English and their home language, conferring value on both. And in that way, support both parents and children towards the lifelong assets of literacy and multilingualism.

Wars are started by a person or persons and are usually a quest for power for a person or a group of people and they dont really care how many people are killed nor how many families are losing a father, mother or brothers or whole families and their relatives. Sometimes, it is necessary to start a war by a peaceful nation against countries tat are harming and have the publically displayed their intentions to extend their borders by taking land from established countrys land and people. This I would consider declaring a war to be the only necessary solution to the problem----but still a war with people getting maimed and killed. In World War One---Germany was the problem----once again lust for power. I wasnt even thought of at that period of time----in fact, I hadnt even arrived on the scene at that point of time. But, think about it for a moment-----theres not one inch of land that has increased in size in those thousands of years of civilization and wars. I was a training in Camp Blanding in Florida---we could look in any direction and there was a sign posted in large letters------Kill or Be Killed----Kill or Be Killed. We were just 18 or 19 year old kids--------think about it--------Kill or Be Killedwhat an educationbut necessary to imprint it inside our young brains. It gave us young kids a reason to become killers-----hesitate for a second and youre dead. Back then in training, we used to repeat over and over was that wars were necessary to Decrease The Surplus Population--------It is most certainly a true statement.