Matthew Forsythe’s 2022 picture book Mina is a genuine pleasure.
What’s more, there are many engines driving this pleasure. The story has multiple nicely original turns, with some delicious randomness (who were the band of musicians, after all), The images are original, unlike most others. And the core plot, with Mina’s dad upsetting her world by doing surprising stuff–and then some of the surprising stuff (trying not to give things away) blocking possible negatives from other surprising stuff, works quite well. It seems strange to say about a book with a mouse for a main character, but there’s an almost Aristotelian peripetia (reversal of events or circumstances) to resolve the story.
Good stuff1
