Review: The Mime by Tommy Tutalo

The Mime by Tommy Tutalo is a fantastical middle-grade story about finding the power in your voice.

Eleven-year-old Florina is a neurodiverse girl living in Mexico, who will not speak, as she struggles to find a place in the ordinary world while taking refuge in her own wonderfully imagined one she draws in her precious sketchbook. With exquisitely inked illustrations by Mexican artist María Gabriela Guevara Sánchez showing young readers Florina’s adventures throughout, Tutalo has created an appealing narrative with fully imagined characters and motivations.

Florina lives in Oaxaca with her guardians the Mochados, who own the ramshackle Indigo theater, once a grand and popular variety venue. She is struggling to make friends at school without speech; she has not a friend in the world, least of all the adults around her. Instead, a strange raggle-taggle troupe of imaginary friends haunt her mind, especially a creepy fool she knows as the shadow man, prancing through her darkened thoughts.

The depth of sadness and subtle cruelty Florina suffers while dealing with her issues are certainly tearjearking, as well as a little frightening, and the Posada y Manilla-esque caricatures she cooks up are quite dark as well. These creatures don’t just haunt her, but also taunt her physically in the real world, which gives the story a sense of a dark fable in the vein of Neil Gaiman or Joan Aikin. Otherworldly entities hiding in the close darkness are certainly part of the Mexican tradition of mysticism and storytelling, with the concept that there is something supernatural to guide our destiny, and Tutalo employs these flavors to great effect.

There is a method to all of this early darkness, as Tutalo knows exactly where he’s taking his reader, and these dark motifs transform into something quite brilliant, leading the narrative down an intricate path of intrigue and twists through past events explaining Florina’s current situation. The city of Oaxaca becomes a character of its own, drawn exquisitely to the point of making it into a magical place, and, as if a veil has at last been lifted like Oz, the reader is transported into the bustling colorful streets as the story goes back in time to introduce the eponymous mime, Manolo, and his muse Marisol as they enter the famous Indigo Theater in its heyday. Here, the epic and magical adventure unfolds with a romantic and suspenseful twist.

What is especially impressive is how Tutalo writes a heroine who never speaks. In a fantasy for younger readers, much of the dialogue is often used to explain events as they unfold, but here, Florinda’s entire personality and actions are vivid and well-realized without this fallback. The narrative instead uses other brilliantly colorful and theatrical characters to create an original setting for Florinda’s discoveries. If there’s a criticism, it’s that the story is sometimes too dark for the age group. While there is certainly room for darkness in children’s literature, and this book will definitely be appealing to older readers, there are some elements, such as the shadow man, which could be frightening for a young child.

That issue aside, The Mime is a wonderfully realized fantasy that is wholly unique in the genre.