BOOKS

The 300-pager is a diary-style tale a bookworm will polish off in one sitting. While it’s dubbed a prequel to Almond’s first children’s novel, the award-winning Skellig, My Name Is Mina very much stands on its own. While Skellig tells the story of a young boy’s discovery of a decrepit creature, an apparently old man with wings, hiding in his garage, Mina’s diary just barely touches on Michael and the angel-like creature they nurse back to youthful health.

Not a traditional prequel at all, My Name Is Mina sheds light on the perplexing notions of a whimsical 12-year-old. She studies everything from dinosaurs to metaphysics while being homeschooled by her journalist mother. The questions Mina asks—about heaven, the underworld, even the rigidly structured life of a student in their schoolroom “cage”—are ones readers will find themselves asking, too.

What I love most about Mina is that she is unafraid to embrace her personality, and to let others see her for what she is. She shrugs off teachers who wish to limit her thinking and couldn’t care a fig for what the neighbors have to say about her tree-climbing, Persephone-summoning ways. She is at peace with herself…and isn’t that what we all should strive for?

by Brittany Taylor | 2/1/2016