Analysis Of Irena Kobald's My Two Blankets

My Two Blankets is a heart warming picture book of hope which follows the journey of a girl named Cartwheel who left her native war torn country with her Auntie to find refuge in the western world (Blackwood, 2014). Using the word ‘I’ indicates the author, Irena Kobald has applied first person as the dialogue and the use of right words such as ‘strange, alone and scared’ makes it easy for the reader to identify Cartwheel telling the story from her own perspective of her struggle to adapt to a new language and different culture (Grellier & Goerke, 2014). The precise vocabulary used is simple in terms of a young child could understand words like ‘cry, funny and silly yet, the use of metaphors provokes the opportunity to extend the semantics of vocabulary by discussing Cartwheels emotions and feelings using the vibrant illustrations by Freya Blackwood which compliment the book to provide additional meaning (Tunnell, 2008). …show more content…
Kobold has cleverly used these metaphorical blankets and illustrations to include unexpected insight to the book. From the title it is assumed by the reader that ‘My Two Blankets’ means just that, two blankets. However, throughout the book we see the blankets are a reflection of Cartwheel’s thoughts and feelings of the two worlds she knows. The author has also applies the word ‘waterfall’ as a metaphor to describe Cartwheel’s feelings towards the language barrier and new culture as “like standing under a waterfall of strange sounds. The waterfall is cold’ (Kobald & Blackwood, 2014). Music in language has been demonstrated