Book Review-My Two Blankets

Book Review: My Two Blankets

Author Irena Kobald Illustrator Freya Blackwood

Grade Level: PreK-5th Grade

Book Description:

Cartwheel moves to a new country with her auntie, and everything is strange: the animals, the plants—even the wind. An old blanket gives Cartwheel comfort when she’s sad—and a new blanket just might change her world.

This multicultural story of friendship is about leaving home, moving to a foreign and strange place, and finding a new friend. It’s a story for all who have experienced change. Irena Kobald’s poetic text, paired with Kate Greenaway medalist Freya Blackwood’s powerful paintings, renders an emotional and heart-warming story about two children from diverse backgrounds coming together to become new friends.

Purchase the book here!

My Review: I loved this book! I immediately began making text-to-text connections with my own book, Chocolate Milk Por Favor. Both titles have similar themes, that actions speak MUCH louder than words. Just a simple smile in the book, The Two Blankets, changed Cartwheels negative experience of being a stranger in a new country into a positive one. The book uses a blanket as an analogy to describe how the main character feels about being in a new environment, compared to being back home. I think this example is a great way for children to practice empathy and relate to Cartwheel. Being back home where she understood the language felt like a warm blanket, keeping her safe. This new place where words didn’t make sense was cold and made her feel unsure of everything.

I can see teachers creating wonderful lessons out of using this book as a read aloud. Families can have important discussions with their children about the importance of being kind to others and they can dig deep to help their children be empathetic and think of a time that they felt like Cartwheel.

Multicultural Children’s Book Day

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Mission: The MCCBD team’s mission to spread the word and raise awareness about the importance of diversity in children’s literature. Our young readers need to see themselves within the pages of a book and experience other cultures, languages, traditions and religions within the pages of a book. We encourage readers, parents, teachers, caregivers and librarians to follow along the fun book reviews, author visits, event details, a multicultural children’s book linky and via our hashtag (#ReadYourWorld) on Twitter and other social media.

Additional Resources:

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Classroom Reading Challenge:

Help spread the word on our Classroom Reading Challenge . This very special offering from MCCBD offers teachers and classrooms the chance to (very easily) earn a free hardcover multicultural children’s book for their classroom library. These books are not only donated by the Junior Library Guild, but they are pre-screened and approved by them as well.
What we could really use some help with is spreading the word to your teacher/librarian/classroom connections so we can get them involved in this program. There is no cost to teachers and classrooms and we’ve made the whole process as simple as possible. You can help by tweeting the below info:
Teachers! Earn a FREE #Multicultural Kids Book for Your Classroom! #teachers, #books #teacherlife http://ow.ly/UUy96
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Book Review-My Two Blankets