Top

My Name is Mina

On sale

6th October 2011

Price: £14.99

CILIP Carnegie Children's Book Award, 2012

Select a format

Selected: Audiobook CD / ISBN-13: 9781444907490

Disclosure: If you buy products using the retailer buttons above, we may earn a commission from the retailers you visit.

There’s an empty notebook lying on the table in the moonlight. It’s been there for an age. I keep on saying that I’ll write a journal. So I’ll start right here, right now. I open the book and write the very first words: My name is Mina and I love the night. Then what shall I write? I can’t just write that this happened then this happened then this happened to boring infinitum. I’ll let my journal grow just like the mind does, just like a tree or a beast does, just like life does. Why should a book tell a tale in a dull straight line?

And so Mina writes and writes in her notebook, and here is her journal, Mina’s life in Mina’s own words: her stories and dreams, experiences and thoughts, her scribblings and nonsense, poems and songs. Her vivid account of her vivid life. In this stunning book, David Almond revisits Mina before she has met Michael, before she has met Skellig.

Reviews

Independent
a master novelist
The Times
There really is nobody quite like Almond writing in children's or adults' fiction today.
Times Educational Supplement
a writer of subtle, page-turning and daring exactness.
Amanda Craig, The Times
Almond manages to make a work of art out of the simplest words.
Michael Morpurgo
David Almond is a fine writer, one of the very finest we have. He is simply incapable of writing a bad sentence.
Carousel
'Another brilliant novel from a master storyteller.'
Daily Mail
Unsettling but, as ever, beautifully written.
Julia Eccleshare
'... exceptional, delicate writing ... make a moving and thoughtful story told with exceptional elegance.'
Writeaway
'exquisite prose which sparkles off the page'
The Bookbag
BACKLIST REVIEWS: 'a book of startling quality and tremendous beauty'
Carousel
David Almond's novels all have a unique, mystical thread running through them. He weaves a story web, spiderlike, that holds the reader spellbound while he spins new though-threads on universal themes.
Sunday Telegraph
One of these days, someone is going to notice that David Almond has been kidnapped by children's publishing and demand him back for adults. But until then, we must rejoice in every new offering of his.
Bookseller
"superb coming-of-age novel from one of our master story-tellers."
The Daily Telegraph
"This is a novel of power and beauty."
INIS
A remarkable and thought-provoking prequel.
Observer
A standalone exploration of a child's relationship with language, ideas and living things... the reader is with her all the way.
Alice, 17, Dorset
The creative way Mina uses words to explore her dreams and ideas will inspire anyone who's ever kept a diary.
Sunday Times
The life-affirming journal of a home-schooled girl.
The Daily Telegraph
A sensational meditation on creativity and the power of words.
Marcus Sedgewick, Guardian.co.uk
A wonderful book. It is joyous. Thank you, David Almond; I cannot remember when a book filled me with such claminosity.
The Times
A skillful, affecting and impassioned book.
The Sunday Times
A celebration of the richness of the everyday world and to read it is to feel uplifted.
The Scotsman
A rare and beautiful novel.
Ham & High
A pitch-perfect prequel to Skellig. A gloriously rich, multi-layered novel.
Books for Keeps
A poignant, heart-warming novel fuelled by Almond's generosity of spirit and his endorsement of childhood's individuality and quirkiness.
INIS (Ireland)
Another gem from this award-winning author.
The Daily Telegraph
A sensational meditation on creativity and the power of words. A must for any budding writer.
Newcastle Upon Tyne Evening Chronicle
Almond's chatty, informal and unique writing is different from anything you have read by him before.
The Guardian
Almond promotes and celebrates freedom for children and their thinking in this lyrical book about growing up.
Times Educational Supplement
A joyous celebration of what it means to be young and alive and enquiring.
School Librarian
A truly remarkable book. A extraordinary masterpiece.
The Bookseller
One of the stand-out novels of the year.
The Newcastle Journal
Intensely moving, this is a profoundly uplifting expression of joy, imagination and consciousness. Absolutely brilliant