Books For Keeps
  • Home
  • Reviews
  • Articles
  • Past Issues
  • Latest Issue
  • Authors and Artists
  • Latest News
  • Search
  • Menu Menu
September 1, 2007/in Fiction 10-14 Middle/Secondary /by Richard Hill
BfK Rating:
BfK 166 September 2007
Reviewer: Caroline Heaton
ISBN: 978-0141318738
Price: £7.99
Publisher: Puffin
Genre: Fiction
Age Range: 10-14 Middle/Secondary
Length: 352pp
Buy the Book

Snowbone

Author: Cat Weatherill

This is a gorgeous romp of a book. Within pages, it flings its reader headfirst into a battle with a pirate ship and seldom lets up pace. Barkbelly introduced children to a wooden boy owing nothing to Pinocchio and everything to Cat Weatherill’s exuberant imagination. Its sequel, Snowbone, takes up the tale of the Ashenpeakers, a race of wooden people who hatch from eggs and can regrow limbs when injured. They are vulnerable to fire, but little else. However their very strength, together with the pouch of healing sap each possesses, make them attractive to the greedy race of men.

The story starts when fire on board a slavers’ ship causes stolen eggs to hatch. Paradoxically rescued by kindly pirates, the young tiddlins are left on the nearest inhabitable island, and find themselves in their homeland. Their feisty leader, Snowbone, is thrilled to find herself back on Ashenpeake, but forays into the island soon reveal all is not well: the Ancestors, ancient Ashenpeakers, who turn into trees at their Moving On, are being attacked by ruthless Sap-Collectors. And this is just the tip of the exploitation. Snowbone and her group of tiddlins vow revenge on the slavers who have devastated the ancestral clearing belonging to Figgis, a forest tinker.

Together with their friend, Manu, a royal boy washed on shore, the tiddlins have a range of gifts, including as yet undiscovered magical skills, but they are up against a ruthlessly organised criminal network.

The day-job is ‘storyteller’ for Cat Weatherill and her work reads as if she has steeped herself in the legends of many cultures, then given her inventions a thoroughly modern and anarchic twist all her own. Full of onomatopoeia, vivid similes and cliff-hanging chapter-breaks, Snowbone has all the immediacy of a performance and it will have young readers enthralled.

Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on WhatsApp
  • Share on Pinterest
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share on Reddit
  • Share by Mail
http://booksforkeeps.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/bfklogo.png 0 0 Richard Hill http://booksforkeeps.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/bfklogo.png Richard Hill2007-09-01 13:10:072023-02-17 13:11:50Snowbone

Search for a specific review

Author Search

Search







Generic filters




Filter by Member Types


Book Author

Download BfK Issue Bfk 272 May 2025
Skip to an Issue:

About Us

Launched in 1980, we’ve reviewed hundreds of new children’s books each year and published articles on every aspect of writing for children.

Read More

Follow Us

Latest News

The School Library Association Announces Honours Lists for 2025 Awards

July 14, 2025

Margaret McDonald and her editors Alice Swan and Ama Badu win the 2025 Branford Boase Award

July 9, 2025

‘The magic of poetry by heart’ Champions of the 2025 National Poetry Speaking Competition Announced

July 8, 2025

Contact Us

Books for Keeps,
30 Winton Avenue,
London,
N11 2AT

Telephone: 0780 789 3369

ISSN: 0143-909X (this is our International Standard Serial Number).

© Copyright 2025 - Books For Keeps | Proudly Built by Lemongrass Media - Web Design Buckinghamshire
Ten Things I Hate About Me The Earth and its Moon
Scroll to top