The Weather Weaver

A stormy island in the Shetlands provides the setting for Tamsin Mori’s debut, a story of magic and old myth.  Eleven-year-old Stella is staying there with her grandpa and finding things difficult: it’s her first visit since her grandma died, and the atmosphere in their cottage is very different now, and much sadder.  After one particularly big row with her grandpa, she runs out onto the clifftops where she encounters the mysterious Tamar who, to Stella’s astonishment, reveals that she has magical gifts.  Stella, it appears, is a weather weaver, able to commend and control clouds and the wind.  Indeed, she is able to pull a cloud out of the sky. When the island is threatened by a sea witch, Tamar and Stella, with the help of the clouds and Grandpa form an unlikely team of heroes to stand against her. It’s a story that makes the most of old magic and of its wild backdrop, while the idea of having a cloud as a best friend will intrigue readers – Nimbus, as Stella calls him, is a wonderful mix of reassuring companion and cheeky, badly behaved puppy, though with the added advantage of being able to provide ‘cloud cover’ when necessary from attacks generated by the evil witch. The plot scuds along like clouds on a spring day and it’s a commendable debut.  More adventures for Stella and Nimbus are promised.