In a book club and starting to plan your reads for next year? Check out our 2025 picks.

Book Summary and Reviews of My Name Is Mina by David Almond

My Name Is Mina by David Almond

My Name Is Mina

by David Almond

  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Readers' Rating:
  • Published:
  • Oct 2011, 272 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About this book

Book Summary

Mina loves the night. While everyone else is in a deep slumber, she gazes out the window, witness to the moon's silvery light. In the stillness, she can even hear her own heart beating. This is when Mina feels that anything is possible and her imagination is set free.

A blank notebook lies on the table. It has been there for what seems like forever. Mina has proclaimed in the past that she will use it as a journal, and one night, at last, she begins to do just that. As she writes, Mina makes discoveries both trivial and profound about herself and her world, her thoughts and her dreams.

Award-winning author David Almond reintroduces readers to the perceptive, sensitive Mina before the events of Skellig in this lyrical and fantastical work. My Name is Mina is not only a pleasure to read, it is an intimate and enlightening look at a character whose open mind and heart have much to teach us about life, love, and the mysteries that surround us.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Almond gives readers a vivid picture of the joyfully free-form workings of Mina's mind and her mixed emotions about being an isolated child... this novel will inspire children to let their imaginations soar." - Publishers Weekly

"A fascinating, if breathless ramble through the cosmos." - Kirkus Reviews

"Starred Review. This book stands very much alone, but the sense of wonder that pervades the smallest details of everyday life remains familiar." - Booklist

"...My Name Is Mina is a wonderful book in its own right, perhaps an even better one than Skellig. It is joyous." - The Guardian (UK)

This information about My Name Is Mina was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Jenny

My favorite book by far
If your looking for a good book to read you should defiantly read My Name is Mina. I have really enjoyed reading this book. It makes me have deep thoughts about what is being said. Im not even all the way done with this book but I can tell you it is a very magnificent book and I strongly recommend it. It is one of those that you will want to read over and over again. Mina has such a great personality and she is very likable. She is what makes the book extraordinary and different from any other book.

Cherry

My Name is Mina.
This book is joyous. I LOVE it. Make a sequel.
MAKE A SEQUEL. Best ever!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

David Almond Author Biography

David Almond, in his own words:

I was born in Newcastle and I grew up in a big Catholic family in Felling-on-Tyne. I had four sisters and a brother and lots of relatives in the streets nearby. My dad had been in Burma during the war. He and my mum married in the late 40s. Dad became an office manager in an engineering factory. Mum was a shorthand typist until she had the children. We moved several times when I was a child, but always within Felling.

Felling had been a coal mining town, but by the time I remember anything the pits were all closed. The river at the foot of the town was lined with warehouses and shipyards. At the summit was a wild area we called the Heather Hills. I loved playing football in the fields above the town, camping out with my friends, ...

... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to David Almond's Website

Other books by David Almond at BookBrowse
  • The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean jacket
  • The Tightrope Walkers jacket

13 more...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more literary fiction...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket
    The House of Doors
    by Tan Twan Eng
    Every July, I take on the overly ambitious goal of reading all of the novels chosen as longlist ...
  • Book Jacket: The Puzzle Box
    The Puzzle Box
    by Danielle Trussoni
    During the tumultuous last days of the Tokugawa shogunate, a 17-year-old emperor known as Meiji ...
  • Book Jacket
    Something, Not Nothing
    by Sarah Leavitt
    In 2020, after a lifetime of struggling with increasingly ill health, Sarah Leavitt's partner, ...
  • Book Jacket
    A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens
    by Raul Palma
    Raul Palma's debut novel A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens introduces Hugo Contreras, who came to the ...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

Great literature cannot grow from a neglected or impoverished soil...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

H I O the G

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.