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The Min-Min
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] Plot outlineSet 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 receptionReviewing 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 alsoReferencesExternal links |
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