Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council

My Name is Mina

By David Almond

Considered a misfit by her teachers and crazy and bonkers by other people. After a short visit to a referral unit she leaves school and is being schooled by her mother, a thing they both enjoy.  Together they discuss lots of things some of them strange.  Mina likes to sit in a tree in her garden and is careful not to disturb the blackbirds and their chicks.  Mina is not stupid but very bright, maybe too bright for her age.  Some grown-ups find this unsettling but not her mother.  Star Rating 6



It took a little while to adjust myself to the variation in sentences, in word size, colour and position.  After this I progressed through Mina's description of her emotions, discoveries, development and relationships and was moved and stimulated.  I particularly was stirred by the 'SATS' section, because she was different and thought and reacted in a direct, personal way to nature, surroundings and people.  I found it very moving and often humorous.  Her mother was wonderful and amazingly understanding and supportive.  I was surprised I found so much pleasure in the book. Star Rating 8



There is no defining story.  Basically it is the relationship between Mina and the people she is in contact with.  She is unhappy at school as her fertile imagination is stifled.  Faced with SATS she shows her contempt for the system by writing rubbish, though she is much more capable in her thoughts and language.  She is a loner with a vivid imagination and the book follows her logic as she follows the great imponderables of where we came from and where we are going.  She enjoys being perched in a tree where she can muse to her hearts content happy in her own company.  The book ends abruptly as she decides after some deliberation to befriend the new boy next door.  Star Rating 5