The Outside Circle: A Graphic Novel

Must read for everyone.. Target audience of all ages and backgrounds.

Fascinating exploration of the injustices done to people in the name of civilization. This is also a good book to examine what it means to be a man in today's world.

diverse adult/teen graphic novel (first nations youth Canadian history/Indian schools single moms/gangs/alcoholism/drug use and dealing/incarceration & alternative therapy/rehab for indigenous people)
good history lesson and representation, though it felt a bit didactic.

This graphic is hard hitting and is something that needs to be read. I am not Native American, but my oldest two children are 1/2 and I lived on the reservation with my first husband's family. I have heard their stories about life when they were young here in the United States. This book really shows how life can be when you are beat down and you pass it down from generation to generation.

powerful stuff! i have to think about this review but i loved this a lot.

Devastating and powerful. One of the best explanations I've seen of how trauma can be passed through generations and affect your life.

Descended from the Blackfish Lake Cree First Nation in Canada, Pete Carver's family is splintering in a spiral of drugs, alcohol, and domestic violence. When this young member of a street gang lands in prison, he is offered a chance to enter an innovative program to help indigenous people heal the generational trauma from centuries of racism, discrimination, and the forced assimilation of Native children at residential schools.

This dramatization is based on a real program that is working to reverse the tides of colonial policy that have caused "the overrepresentation of Aboriginal people in the criminal justice system and of Aboriginal children in government care" and "the intergenerational transmission of hopelessness, helplessness, and powerlessness."

While the actual storytelling can be a little awkward at times, I was moved by Pete's transformation and given hope that others could follow the same path.

I can' t begin to describe how much I feel this book deserves appreciation. I see no reviews on LibraryThing and this is saddening. With beautiful graphic rendering, through the narrative of a culturally dispossessed gang member who loses the few connections he has in the first place, the tragedy, depth of despair and (with aid of a detailed genogram no less)the background events of the "assimilation" of our Aboriginal peoples are shown in full. The author and illustrator have succeeded in communicating this information elegantly, simply, accessibly, yet comprehensively (in essence a fairly amazing accomplishment). For all the pain; inner strength, resilience and fragile humility are never completely forgotten. Rays of hope pore through. Still as I extol its virtues, I picture this publication seen as merely an accessory-tool expressly for rehabilitation programs, or perhaps, in a less favorable light, seen as "propaganda" by those in our society who possess little awareness of these realities. I can attest though, being in-part because I am married to a survivor of residential schools, this narrative mirrors the experiences of probably every single individual and family of First Nations descent. "Astonishing!" some of you will say and this is the very reason I will recommend this to LibrayThing (and Goodreads)readers and will go further out of my way than even usual!