Take a photo of a barcode or cover
housedesignerking 's review for:
The Snow Spider
by Jenny Nimmo
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Gwyn Griffiths is one of two children. His sister Bethan disappeared one night when Gwyn asked her to help get one of the ewes that got away from their farm. She disappeared on a hill, and his parents blame him for her disappearance.
His grandmother, who is to be called Nain, brings him a piece of seaweed, a yellow scarf, a tin whistle, a twisted metal brooch, and a broken horse. all of these gifts are intended to help him discover whether or not he is a magician.
It's a very slow paced story, and different from Nimmo's Charlie Bone Series. I did, however, notice a similarity with the first CB book: "Midnight For Charlie Bone." In this story, his grandmother 'Nain' wants to see if he has special abilities. In the CB series, the Yewbeam aunts come over and trick him into revealing that he has abilities by having him look at a picture; he can see what was happening when a picture was taken simply by looking at it.
Gwyn's parents are not the best. His father is emotionally abusive at times, while his mother is not much better. At times, she basically harasses him with questions. She seemed to love him at the start of the book for his birthday, but then seems less than impressed by his existence and presence thereafter. I'm not sure if that's what Nimmo intended, but that's how they came off the page to me.
Sometimes, Nain came off as perhaps having dementia even though she had a key role in this story. Unfortunately, some of the characters seemed a bit 2D, and sometimes even 1D (if that makes sense). Decent beginning to a story, but I enjoyed Midnight For Charlie Bone a lot more.
His grandmother, who is to be called Nain, brings him a piece of seaweed, a yellow scarf, a tin whistle, a twisted metal brooch, and a broken horse. all of these gifts are intended to help him discover whether or not he is a magician.
It's a very slow paced story, and different from Nimmo's Charlie Bone Series. I did, however, notice a similarity with the first CB book: "Midnight For Charlie Bone." In this story, his grandmother 'Nain' wants to see if he has special abilities. In the CB series, the Yewbeam aunts come over and trick him into revealing that he has abilities by having him look at a picture; he can see what was happening when a picture was taken simply by looking at it.
Gwyn's parents are not the best. His father is emotionally abusive at times, while his mother is not much better. At times, she basically harasses him with questions. She seemed to love him at the start of the book for his birthday, but then seems less than impressed by his existence and presence thereafter. I'm not sure if that's what Nimmo intended, but that's how they came off the page to me.
Sometimes, Nain came off as perhaps having dementia even though she had a key role in this story. Unfortunately, some of the characters seemed a bit 2D, and sometimes even 1D (if that makes sense). Decent beginning to a story, but I enjoyed Midnight For Charlie Bone a lot more.