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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I'm not sure how I feel about this one - on one hand it seems like a great exploration of how and why Welsh Mythology remains present in the modern collective consciousness. On the other...I think this was for children, maybe they would accept it more at face value, but the magical elements came out of nowhere and didn't seem to work together properly and it ruined my suspension of disbelief.
One of my most favourite stories from when I was a child. Full of magic and Welsh legends.
‘Time to find out if you are a magician, Gwydion Gwyn’.
There is something so magical about being able to share a story that you loved so much as a child, with a child of your own.
The Snow Spider is a story that I both watched and read as a child and it’s unique beauty is still as irresistible to me today.
Now in its 30th year since its release, The Snow Spider’ is the first book in a trilogy, written by Jenny Nimmo and taking inspiration from The Mabinogion - ancient welsh folktales of magicians and magic.
On his 9th Birthday, Gwyn Griffiths is given a selection of strange gifts by his equally strange Grandmother, who believes him to be a magician and the ancestor of the great magicians of the past. In turn, he gives each of the gifts to the wind in the hope of finding out his destiny and to try and win his true heart’s desire - the return of his sister Bethan, he went missing on the mountain four years ago.
Oh what a tangled web Gwyn weaves as he discovers not only that he does have powers, aided by the arrival of Arianwen, a snow spider who can create webs that connect him to another world and a strange yet familiar girl named Eirlys.
This book is truly spellbinding, set against the backdrop of the beautiful Welsh valleys, the gorgeous setting makes for a perfect story of a boy magician and his adventures with the unknown.
There is something so magical about being able to share a story that you loved so much as a child, with a child of your own.
The Snow Spider is a story that I both watched and read as a child and it’s unique beauty is still as irresistible to me today.
Now in its 30th year since its release, The Snow Spider’ is the first book in a trilogy, written by Jenny Nimmo and taking inspiration from The Mabinogion - ancient welsh folktales of magicians and magic.
On his 9th Birthday, Gwyn Griffiths is given a selection of strange gifts by his equally strange Grandmother, who believes him to be a magician and the ancestor of the great magicians of the past. In turn, he gives each of the gifts to the wind in the hope of finding out his destiny and to try and win his true heart’s desire - the return of his sister Bethan, he went missing on the mountain four years ago.
Oh what a tangled web Gwyn weaves as he discovers not only that he does have powers, aided by the arrival of Arianwen, a snow spider who can create webs that connect him to another world and a strange yet familiar girl named Eirlys.
This book is truly spellbinding, set against the backdrop of the beautiful Welsh valleys, the gorgeous setting makes for a perfect story of a boy magician and his adventures with the unknown.
It is on Gwyn’s ninth birthday when his Grandmother gives him an assortment of strange objects and tells him he could be a magician. It was on Gwyn’s fifth birthday when his sister, Bethan, went missing. For those four years his father has blamed Gwyn for Bethan’s disappearance, but so has Gwyn.
Jenny Nimmo’s classic was re-released on it’s 30th anniversary with a lovely new cover by Daniela Terrazzini, before this edition I hadn’t known of this book, which is a great shame as I could have loved it for over 30 years rather than one.
Jenny’s writing is tight and well paced, her characters are so believable that you emotionally invest in their world from the beginning of the story.
Gwyn is sceptical of his Grandmother’s claims that he could be the descendent of the famous magician; Math, Lord of Gwynedd, Gwydion and Gilfraethwy; well you would be wouldn’t you?
But as the story unfolds, we see what he could become and the dangers that could be involved in this.
Literally magical, Jenny developed a wonderful world with wonderful characters and gave me a book that I love, making it one of the best sellers in our shop.
Jenny Nimmo’s classic was re-released on it’s 30th anniversary with a lovely new cover by Daniela Terrazzini, before this edition I hadn’t known of this book, which is a great shame as I could have loved it for over 30 years rather than one.
Jenny’s writing is tight and well paced, her characters are so believable that you emotionally invest in their world from the beginning of the story.
Gwyn is sceptical of his Grandmother’s claims that he could be the descendent of the famous magician; Math, Lord of Gwynedd, Gwydion and Gilfraethwy; well you would be wouldn’t you?
But as the story unfolds, we see what he could become and the dangers that could be involved in this.
Literally magical, Jenny developed a wonderful world with wonderful characters and gave me a book that I love, making it one of the best sellers in our shop.
It is on Gwyn’s ninth birthday when his Grandmother gives him an assortment of strange objects and tells him he could be a magician. It was on Gwyn’s fifth birthday when his sister, Bethan, went missing. For those four years his father has blamed Gwyn for Bethan’s disappearance, but so has Gwyn.
Jenny Nimmo’s classic was re-released on it’s 30th anniversary with a lovely new cover by Daniela Terrazzini, before this edition I hadn’t known of this book, which is a great shame as I could have loved it for over 30 years rather than one.
Jenny’s writing is tight and well paced, her characters are so believable that you emotionally invest in their world from the beginning of the story.
Gwyn is sceptical of his Grandmother’s claims that he could be the descendent of the famous magician; Math, Lord of Gwynedd, Gwydion and Gilfraethwy; well you would be wouldn’t you?
But as the story unfolds, we see what he could become and the dangers that could be involved in this.
Literally magical, Jenny developed a wonderful world with wonderful characters and gave me a book that I love, making it one of the best sellers in our shop.
Jenny Nimmo’s classic was re-released on it’s 30th anniversary with a lovely new cover by Daniela Terrazzini, before this edition I hadn’t known of this book, which is a great shame as I could have loved it for over 30 years rather than one.
Jenny’s writing is tight and well paced, her characters are so believable that you emotionally invest in their world from the beginning of the story.
Gwyn is sceptical of his Grandmother’s claims that he could be the descendent of the famous magician; Math, Lord of Gwynedd, Gwydion and Gilfraethwy; well you would be wouldn’t you?
But as the story unfolds, we see what he could become and the dangers that could be involved in this.
Literally magical, Jenny developed a wonderful world with wonderful characters and gave me a book that I love, making it one of the best sellers in our shop.
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
mysterious
A book I’d read with my daughter and sort of enjoyed; a TV series that was held together by a major actor and whose SFX seemed creaky: revisiting The Snow Spider was a bit of an act of loyalty. I was wrong.
I’ll leave it to others with a better grasp of Welsh countryside, culture and mythology to pass judgment on all of that, central though they are, but I have to say I was drawn in. Unspoken tensions following the loss of a child on a Welsh hill farm concentrate on her surviving brother, whose magical inheritance seemed at once completely fantastic and also believable: think Susan Cooper’s Will and Bran as the subject of playground gossip and bullying; think of Garner’s own Gwyn, but younger.
Enchanting from first to last.
I’ll leave it to others with a better grasp of Welsh countryside, culture and mythology to pass judgment on all of that, central though they are, but I have to say I was drawn in. Unspoken tensions following the loss of a child on a Welsh hill farm concentrate on her surviving brother, whose magical inheritance seemed at once completely fantastic and also believable: think Susan Cooper’s Will and Bran as the subject of playground gossip and bullying; think of Garner’s own Gwyn, but younger.
Enchanting from first to last.