Mina, an illustrated book of whimsy and mirth that’s one of the year’s best

Lo, and the boat shall not be missed twice. In my mind, Vincent Price is saying those words to me as I read Mina. Mina is by author and illustrator Matthew Forsythe, the creator of one of our favorite illustrated books of all time, Pokko and the Drum. That book was released in 2019 and was on every one of the Top 10 Children’s Booklists that we saw from that year for good reason. Mina is the follow-up to that book and will receive many of the same accolades. They’re also well deserved. The combination of beautiful art, with the sublime, simple, and silly story will have audiences four and up in stitches.

Then, they’ll take another look at the art and lose themselves in the world of muted colors set amidst the silliness of a mouse who takes in a much larger critter from the outside world. After that, those readers will look at the big, black words that are contrasted on white pages. Even when the art comes across two pages there’s a fifth of the bottom spread that’s devoted to the words, as any illustrated book should be. The words are too big for most of those early elementary kids to read by themselves on the first try, but that’s OK.

Mina is a read-along in the finest sense of the action and the book. It’s a read-along book that those doing the speaking won’t mind doing. The story is so fun that they’ll easily be able to read it twice and still have some gas in the can. One could consider this a great-good-night book, but, Mina is one that crosses over into the daylight and is as at home in a classroom, living room, bedroom or any place a kid four and up wants to read.

Young readers will adore the silliness of Mina. When the book opens we see Mina laying on the floor reading a book. She lives with her dad who is always trying to make things better or simpler through one of his wacky ideas. He’s had buskers in the house and other odd things and Mina usually doesn’t pay it any attention. This one day is just a bit different; it’s when he says that he’s got a really big surprise for her.

The operative word in his declaration is big, because he’s brought home a squirrel. It’s a squirrel that looks suspiciously like a cat, a fact that the young Mina quickly points out to her dad. He insists that it’s got a bushy tail and is larger than a mouse, so it must certainly be a squirrel. Henceforth, we won’t be discussing what happens in Mina because it’s not necessary.

I read the book to a group of second graders and they immediately knew, just as you do, what could happen. Again, the operative word in that previous sentence is could, but Mina, just as its predecessor, flies in the face of expectations in the most creative of ways. Forsythe creates a story that’s as much a feline fantasy, a mus musculus tale of wary trust, children’s story and stick insect soliloquy that anybody and everybody can identify with it.

Mina will be in most top-10 lists when it comes to children’s literature when the bell rings for 2022. Just like that Sandra Boynton board book that your kids will chew or that Dr. Seuss book that your kids first loved, this will be in your forever bookshelf. It feels familiar, but it’s not. It was released in 2022, but it could just have easily have been released in 1985, 1962, or 2042. This is a timeless book that doesn’t age and is infused with that secret sauce that turns early elementary ages into readers, even if it’s just for the duration of the story.

Mina is by Matthew Forsythe and available on Paula Wiseman Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

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