Changes

|title=The Vanishing Act

|author=Mette Jakobsen

|publisher=Vintage

|date=August 2012

|summary=A charming little fable that doesn’t make extracting the meaning difficult and works just as well as a story. The decision as to which works the best is left to you.

}}

Minou lives on a sparsely occupied, temperate island. In fact the only occupants apart from Minou and her Papa are Priest (the Priest), Boxman (a maker of magical boxes) and a dog called No Name. Minou’s mother used to live there too. She arrived on a boat with a bowl containing a peacock (a real live one called… yes… Peacock). But then one day Mama disappeared completely apart from one shoe. Minou misses her and the way that she encouraged Minou’s imagination, completely at odds with her father’s logical philosophical outlook. Papa doesn’t believe that Mama will return and so has symbolically buried the shoe but Minou thinks differently: Mama will come back.