Blankets

2009 Best List

by Craig Thompson. http://www.dootdootgarden.com/

Marietta: Top Shelf Productions, 2003. (graphic novel)
 Annotation:
Craig Thompson's intimately reflective and tormented autobiography in graphic novel format walks the reader through his life as a teen while remembering his childhood sexual abuse, family relationships and struggles with sex and religion.

Personal Reaction.
I own this beautiful book. It was given to me by a friend to put in one of the elementary libraries, I think by mistake, since the content is very mature, and possibly almost adult in content. Before I read it, I noticed the 12 year old girls in my house extremely interested in it and decided I better look closer. Thompson's personal reflection while telling his life story comes through in the details of his illustrations just as much as in his written words. The book transitions Thompson from young boy to adult. We see him struggle through memories of the sexual abuse his brother and him suffer at the hands of a frightening babysitter. We experience the intensity of his evangelical home life. We see his first love and feel the strangeness of her family and the intensity of first sexuality and attraction. We see the unhappiness of adults through his adolescent eyes. However, I wonder how all this mature reflection portrayed as adolescent observation is soaked in by the older youth reader. This is a stomach hurting book at times, and, because it is a graphic novel, you can see and feel the story, not just read it, which was hard for me.
Black and White pen and ink
2009 top ten class list LIBR 271
2004 Harvey Awards: Best Artist, Best Graphic Album of Original Work and Best Cartoonist
2004 Eisner Awards: Best Graphic Album and Best Writer/Artist
2004 Ignatz Awards: Outstanding Artist and Outstanding Graphic Novel or Collection
2005 Prix de la critique