Mina Mistry is a fun new series of stories for children, which are written in a funny, fast-paced style which will make children thrilled to read on and help solve the investigation themselves! I am sure they are going to be a very popular set of books within classrooms across the country!

Today, I am lucky enough to have a guest post from Angie, the author of Mina Mistry. 👇🏼

Here, she tells us all about an unlikely trait heroes might have. I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I did!

Being awkward: the unlikely trait that real heroes have in common.

Today was my daughter’s third day at nursery. The start was turbulent; as expected. I asked her Dad how she was when he picked her up, he looked at me blankly conveying about as much information as he’d taken in and said: “Dunno – she was just standing there by herself, watching the other children play.”

He then added that her teacher had approached him to tell him that: “She’s not the most sociable child; it’s going to be very hard for her to interact with other children.”

In a way, I was relieved. 

My daughter isn’t two yet, but she’s going to be a chip off the old block. I’ve seen her at the playground or at the pool, looking utterly baffled as she watches other children play whilst I try to avoid eye contact with other parents.

 Admittedly, the fact that her father and I can barely interact with other humans is probably the cause of the condition; even having to stop for petrol can be turned into an ordeal of epic proportions. 

Although I’d hoped that our daughter would be more sociable than us, I have to say that at least with an awkward kid I feel like I’m on my own turf: I have resources for that.

 I probably wouldn’t be able to cope with having a kid who runs off to play with other children and gets into scraps … but an awkward kid? Bring it on!

I like awkward kids and I suppose that’s why I really wanted to write an awkward character: enter Mina Mistry.

Mina likes investigating, she likes logic, she likes working things out. People are not the focal point of her life and they’re not really her area of expertise. I liked the idea that someone who can be so observant of the world around them and so good at piecing together a puzzle can also be completely oblivious to the human interactions occurring right in front of them.

Mina is intelligent enough to realise all of this though, so she sort of subcontracts her social life out to her best friend, Holly Loafer. Holly is Greenville Elementary’s number one A-list celebrity. She is great with people, she always knows what to say and do and everybody likes her. Mina has never really stopped to think about whether anybody likes her or not, she can’t really see the utility in caring about that.

 Holly decides what parties they go to, who they speak to and what events they get involved in. She gets really excited about really superficial things like what she’s going to wear or whether Gareth Trumpshaw has noticed that she smells nice.

So, why are two people as different as Mina and Holly friends? I think to some extent it’s intrigue, mixed with a dose of mutual pity: Holly probably feels sorry for Mina because she doesn’t have any friends and Mina probably feels sorry for Holly because her life is full of shallow, frivolous pursuits. Whatever the reason, it does make for some funny anecdotes.

Like the sound of this book? Buy it here: https://amzn.to/3mgYsRo

Emily x