Customer Reviews

The Snow Spider (Magician Trilogy #1)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The book I have chosen to read is The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo. I guess I would have to summarize this story by saying the main theme of this book is about a boy named Gwyn who sets out on a journey to find his sister who everyone thinks has died. He also discovers special abilities he has as a magician. Ultimately, a special snow spider will help Gwyn with both of these issues.

I really liked this book for a couple of reasons. The more I read this book the more I actually felt like I was a character in the story. The author was very descriptive when telling this story. You could actually picture yourself or the characters in this book and the adventures they had throughout the book. I was very interested in the main conflict of this story because setting out to find a loved one would be something that would be very important to me. I was interested to see how Gwyn would find his sister.

I think Jenny Nimmo had a very neat type of writing style. I could always see each characters personalities come out in the words they spoke. I think you could even imagine what type of voice they had, whether it was a loud voice, soft voice, deep voice or high pitched voice. You could actually feel what they were feeling when they talked.

I really enjoyed this book very much. When rating this book on a scale of 1 to 10, I think I would rate this book a 9. It was one of very few books that actually kept my attention throughout each chapter. I would definitely recommend this book to other kids who enjoy adventure, mystery, and like fantasy and using their imagination.

Overall, I think this was a really good book. I think that if kids like stories like Harry Potter, then they would enjoy reading this book too. This was a story that really opened up my imagination and even made me interested in reading more books in the future. Again, I really liked this book and I think you will to.

Book reviewed by Emily

The Snow Spider is the first book in a new Trilogy (The Magician's Trilogy, no less) by Jenny Nimmo and I have to say, it's a delightful read. I was pleased to see a mix of fantasy and Welsh folklore/mythology...not exactly something you see everyday in kid's fiction and it makes for an interesting read! In this first book of the trilogy we are introduced to a group of characters that I suspect will be with us for the entire series. The main character is Gwyn a young man celebrating his tenth birthday as the story begins. We also have his Nain (grandmother) a kind of kooky but loveable woman who initiates Gwyn into his destiny; Mr. & Mrs. Griffiths his parents; Bethan, Gwyn's sister who has been missing for four years; Alun Loyd (and the entire Loyd family) his best friend; and Erlys the pale girl who plays an interesting part in the whole story.

As Snow Spider starts out Gwyn has been given five rather unusual birthday presents (A scarf, a brooch, a broken wooden horse, a whistle, and a bit of seaweed)...items which initially seem like the silly gifts of a grandma whose maybe gone a little dotty, but which ultimately serve as his entrance into a whole new world. As it turns out, Nain is right, Gwyn IS descended from a long line of magicians and it is through these gifts that he can reclaim this birth right.

It all starts with the offering of the broach, which brings him the mysterious spider Airanwen, a very special spider indeed. There are elements to Snow Spider that seem common with most children's fantasy stories...Gwyn's father is mean to him on his birthday because he blames the boy for his sister's disappearance four years earlier, he's got a plucky best friend, and while the adults in this story are largely caring, Gwyn is offered lots of opportunities to be out on his own and be the hero of his magical little story.

Overall, The Snow Spider is a wonderfully magical start to a new series and we are eagerly awaiting the next installment (due out this month). I give Snow Spider five stars; it's a short read that manages to deliver a fantastic story that leaves the reader wanting more!

Jenny Nimmo does several things very well, but what she does best (in this reviewer's humble opinion) is create believable and unique "systems of magic" for her books. That just might be the most difficult task for an author trying to write fantasy, because thousands of fantasy books have been written, and virtually every conceivable method that could be construed as magic seems to have been used.

Until this book, I was only familiar with the Charlie Bone series, and was always impressed with the unique talents, and how those talents were "deployed", so to speak, so to step back to such an early point in her career and see her starting out with such originality is all the more impressive.

The Snow Spider picked up steam as it moved toward an exciting climax, and as the dust settled and everyone started to go their separate ways, there was an overpowering sense that this was leading to something much greater than itself.

The first chapter of the second book in The Magician Trilogy is included at the end, and it was as if the doors to the world she created (yes, this is being told in our real world, but think Harry Potter - that's also a created fantasy world that's told in our world) blew open. There is no question that there is more here than meets the eye.

Snow Spider by Jenny Nimmo is an exciting and courageous book I would recommend this to our age or an older age group because of the variety of words and sentances. In the beginning of this book you would find out that Gwyn's grandmother (called Nain) tells Gwyn about his ancestors who where magicians.
Then for his 9th birthday she gives him 5 gifts and tells him that if he gives them to the wind and gets something in return then he is a magician. Well it turns out that he is a magician. He gets a couple of cool things back like a snow spider who can spin silver picture webs. And a pipe so he can hear the the the sounds to the picture. He uses his power to do some really cool things! However you cant have a book without running into some problems right? Well in this book a couple of things happen like for example his spider Arianwen gets thrown into the sink because his mom doesn't like spiders so he has to use his powers to get her back.
One of the gifts is a broken horse, Nain tells Gwyn that he shouldn't give the horse to the wind but when he went to the mountain the wind took it from his hands and it released it to be a demand horse. Read the book to see if his powers can overcome the demand or if Gwyn will let his ancestors down!
The book takes place mostly near Gwyn's house. He goes up to the mountains a couple of times to let things go to the wind. He also goes to school, he goes to the Lloyds house, and he goes to his nains house. He says that nains house is like a library it is full of so many books. Gwyn however lives on a farm with cows and sheep. There aren't a lot of characters in this book but the main character would have to be Gwyn he is a 9 year old who is looking for adventure. Nain comes back and forth in the book but is his grandmother who gets attacked by the demand horse. She knows a lot about Gwyns ancestors so that's how Gwyn knows about every thing his ancestors did. I would also say that Bethan (his sister) plays a big part because the people in the web kidnapped her on his birthday a few years back and now that he is a magician he needs her so she comes back as Eirlys.
So read the book to find out if Gwyn defeats the demand horse of if the horse can out smart him and keep destroying the town!

Snow Spider by jenny nimmo is an fantasy book that I would recommend to any ages. The first thing that happens in the story is that Gwins sister gets lost in a storm,up in the mountain and she never returns.
One year later, Gwin had his birthday on the same day his sister dissapeared.Gwins grandmother gave Gwin some weird stuff like:a horse with a broken ear,a piece of seaweed and his sister's scarf that was found up on the mountain a couple of weeks after she was lost and much more.
At the weirdest time, he was told to throw them into the wind,and he would find something weird,so he did. that night Gwin found something so cool,but out of the ordinary. It was a spider. No original spider no,it was a snow spider. I wont tell you much more than that but i will tell you that,later in the story he gets a flute. When he starts to play it he hears something you might hear every day. But the things he hears is something from a different planet. It was little children voices screaming,playing,laughing and much more. Soon he sees his spider spinning a web all over his room,he then started to see a mysterious city with the little children in it.
When his grandmother finds out Gwin gave the stuff to the wind. She was so proud. The reason why she was so proud was that,she said that Gwin was a magician. Here are the clues that he would be a magician was: the birthday gifts,not something you would get for your birthday from grandma,the flute that flies into your open window and lands in your lap,and last,a spider shaped as a snow flake,white as snow and silky webs so silky and silver and sparkly.
Gwin is the type of boy you would call different to other people. He is very imaginative and different. His friends think of him as being weird and crazy. At first Gwin doesn't believe in the hole magician thing. His sister did but she didn't talk to him about it at all. Until Gwins grandma was telling stories to Gwin and made him wonder about things like that. When he got alittle bit older he would go to school and get books about it. thats my description about him. About Gwin.That was my description of the Snow Spider.

I am the mother of five children (ages 5-13). We are all avid readers of children's literature. We enjoy Harry Potter, the Mysterious Benedict Society, Chronicles of Narnia, Series of Unfortunate Events, Gail Carson Levine books, etc. This book is just not good. It reads more like a rough first draft, very rough.
I checked this book out on CD to listen to in the car. Wow--it is really bad. The characters are flat and say and do the most nonsensical things. My kids and I laughed at the characters reactions in nearly every aspect of this book. The whole "missing sister coming back thing" was really bizzare, bizzare creepy. I felt uncomfortable listening to this. In fact, we stopped listening to it as a family. I finished it on my own just to see if it got better. It didn't--it got worse. One of my older sons has read the Charlie Bone series by this same author. He enjoys Charlie Bone, but did not like The Snow Spider--at all! I would advise skipping this series.

I have read all of the Charlie Bone books that are out so far and bought this series afterwards and it is no disappointment, this is another great series from Jenny Nimmo. I would recommend this to all kids and any adults that want a good story that draws you right into it.

Like other reviewers, I liked the Charlie Bone series better, but I give this 5 stars because this series is still well written, and is still a good read. It actually got my 10-yr-old son to put Harry Potter down for a few days! LOL He did find the 3rd book a bit confusing-I think it's better for kids interested in dating because of all of the romance complications involved that one just can't understand until one has had a broken heart. But the 1st 2 books are fine for a tween.

I liked the information on Wales also. It brought back memories of my visit there. I think it's a great way to introduce the country to kids.

I think others have laid the plot out pretty well, so I won't repeat it.

I thought the imagery of the book was refreshing and intriguing, the idea of giving gifts to the wind so that the wind would give you back something of value. I also enjoyed the Welsh accent of the narrator.

My problem with the book was the relentless negativity. Parents and friends treat each other with such hostility in this series. Children are constantly on guard for disapproval - I can't be happy, my parents will be upset that I'm home late, I can't tell anyone what I can do. The atmosphere of distrust and apprehension is oppressive.

Of course, you get some of that in the Charlie Bones series as well in the school. But at least at home n that series, the family essentially like each other. I just didn't find this world an inviting place to be. I wanted to leave. So there was no reason to go back.

First, I'm 29 so take that into consideration. I understand that these books are clearly for children but so is Charlie Bone, and so are a lot of these fantasy books that I enjoy. The magician trilogy books are short, the snow spider is very short. It's about a 4 hour read. But even so it's hard to stay interested for that time. Despite it's length it took me like 5 days to finish it. A book of that length would be done in one sitting if it was actually good. I really liked the Charlie Bone series, and that's why I figured I'd check out this series as well. I got it on audiobook from the library. I got all three and ripped them to my ipod so I could listen to them anywhere. This is the only reason I might finish the series, because I've already done all that work. As a side note, the reading on the audiobook is horrible. The lines are delivered with an odd style where the last word of a sentence are stretched out and emphasized for no reason. It's really annoying. You're better off reading the book so you can read it like a normal human would.

After book one, I find myself not even caring what happens. There's not even a clear underlying plot that needs to be resolved. I'm just totally disinterested. If I do finish the series it will be simply because it's there on my ipod, not because I'm actually enjoying the books. But there are plenty of stories still on my list so this series will probably just get deleted. At the same time I am also reading the Magic Thief series. That one is probably similar in terms of age level and genre and it's actually interesting. Sure it's no Harry Potter but once you get going you actually enjoy the experience, unlike the Magician Trilogy, and the audio book is actually a good performance.

Also, the Last Apprentice series is fantastic. It's definitely more dark so probably not for the same audience as the Magician Trilogy, but if you're older and like fantasy/magic series and don't mind that it's definitely more dark themed, check out the Last Apprentice series.