Katrina Nannestad (text) and Cheryl Orsini (illustrator), Mim and the Mother Muddle (The Travelling Bookshop #6), ABC Books AU, March 2025, 240 pp., RRP $16.99 (pbk), ISBN 9780733343124
Katrina Nannestad now has 6 books in her kindly magical series The Travelling Bookshop. For those not yet familiar, the main character is Mim a young girl who travels with her eccentric father and sweetly innocent younger brother, Nat, in their shape-shifting portable bookshop. They are book-loving gypsies whose bookshop caravan will adapt to suit the city they set up in. In the stories, Mim is given a decent level of freedom to roam and explore the places they visit, which gives readers a chance to get a kids-eye perspective of other cities and countries.
In this newest addition to the series, Mim and the Mother Muddle, we open with the family and their wild menagerie of animals at the Salzburg railway station. Their plan was to travel to Vienna to see Mum, but Flossy, their wise horse who pulls the bookshop stops in Salzburg, and so that is where they settle this time. While exploring, Mim and Nat run into someone who looks like Mum and who claims Mum’s name, but who has no memory of Mim and Nat.
Obviously having your mum completely blank on your own existence is an emotionally terrifying thing, and considering this, Mim actually handles the hiccup quite well. Will they be able to sort out the confusion and re-connect with Mum?
These books are for those strong independent readers in about year 4-6, who like to read about books, and who like a bit of magic and mayhem. They are gentle middle-grade fiction, with gorgeous illustrations to add interest to the text.
There was one passage from the book that I especially loved: When you read a good book, it comes alive. You live the story. Isn’t that just the truth?
Reviewed by Cherie Bell
