The Min-Min

Last updated
The Min-Min
The Min-Min.jpg
Author Mavis Thorpe Clark
Language English
Genrechildren's fiction
PublisherLansdowne Press, Melbourne
Publication date
1966
Publication placeAustralia
Media typePrint
Pages206 pp
Preceded byThey Came South 
Followed byBlue Above the Trees 

The Min-Min is a 1966 children's novel by Australian author Mavis Thorpe Clark, illustrated by Genevieve Melrose. [1] It won the Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers in 1967. [2]

Contents

Plot outline

Set in a squalid fettlers' siding on the east-west railway just south of Woomera, this novel follows the story of Sylvie Edwards and her younger brother Reg. After Reg destroys a teacher's record player the two children set off across the desert to the Tuckers' homestead.

Critical reception

Reviewing the novel in The Canberra Times Elizabeth Bray was disappointed with the book: "The author seems to have attempted to write the story on two levels - as an adventure story, and as the portrait of a girl passing from childhood into adolescence. The second aspect is tenuously linked with the "min-min", a light seen in the desert night sky; as the blurb puts it "the gleam in the dark is symbolic of her life and future". In spite of this, Sylvie's character remains one-dimensional." [3]

See also

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References