The Outside Circle by Patti LaBoucane-Benson is a graphic novel that showcases the story of Aboriginal people in Canada through Pete’s perspective. This engaging narrative explores the impact of residential schools on indigenous communities, with a focus on Pete’s personal journey.
The story starts off by saying how a lot of people within the culture don’t know who they are and are lost. Many men don’t know what it takes to be a man with many being lost within addiction, pain, and confusion. It then transitions into Pete’s life and starts off with him being a negative example of all the pain within his community. He originally follows the path of gangs, violence, generational fatherlessness while being surrounded by drug abuse. Soon after getting arrested and imprisoned for shooting his mother’s boyfriend, he participates in the In Search of Your Warrior program, designed for the healing and rehabilitation of incarcerated Aboriginal men.
In my honest opinion, the book’s plot had a straightforward and basic development, but its uniqueness stemmed from the way it presented the history of indigenous people. While the storyline was simple and informative, It was still cool and engaging. A main thing I enjoyed about this book is the mass amounts of artwork (by Kelly Mellings) shown. Specifically, a page in the book which shows a contract that Pete’s mother signed, which includes a brief history of residential schools dating back to the 1840s and how they forcibly removed generations of Aboriginal people from their families. It seems to me that the author included that in the story’s contract to ensure that readers could actually read it, which to me seems like a sort of symbolism because Pete’s mother is essentially signing his younger brother, Joey, off into that life and perpetuating the cycle of abuse in the community.
Another was Pete’s personal transition during his stay at the In Search of Your Warrior rehabilitation program for incarcerated Aboriginal men. During his stay, Pete awakened his spirit animal in a dream, “The waking bear.” In Pete’s culture, the bear is a symbol of strength, wisdom, and its ability to heal their own wounds and keep on fighting. This choice is crucial as it represents a significant aspect of Pete’s story. By assigning Pete the bear as his spirit animal, the author introduces a symbol of strength and captures Pete’s resolve to move forward without reverting to his criminal past. The entire story revolves around Pete’s endeavor to break free from the damaging cycle of drug abuse, gang violence, and anger shown among many people in his community.
The bear, serving as a motivational reminder, prompts Pete to confront and break free from this damaging cycle. The impact of this symbolism is showed when Pete has a run-in with his old gang members, and his spirit animal appears right behind him. This occurrence instills in him the confidence to make the right decision by refusing to fall down that destructive path again. As a result, it demonstrates the mental and physical effect that bear symbolism had on Pete as he pursued a positive and transformative course of action.
I found it pretty cool how the author worked in a spirit animal, tapping into Pete’s Aboriginal culture. Overall, I think it’s a good book with a really meaningful message.
Get the book! Check out The Outside Circle by Patti LaBoucane-Benson at BMCC’s Library, the New York Public Library, or the Brooklyn Public Library. It is also available via the Internet Archive.
About the author Linda is a young Brooklyn native who developed an interest in books during the pandemic. Her creative mind makes her an avid reader of young adult, fiction, and romance novels.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
