Fabulous reads – Children’s novel doesn’t shake up the genre
Book review - Snowglobe by Amy Wilson.
Snowglobe, Amy Wilson, Pan Macmillan, ISBN: 9781509885800
A YOUNG girl’s whole world turns outside in when she sparks her magic and stumbles upon a ruin of a home that is filled to the brim with strange snowglobes that contain tiny, moving people.
Clementine, or Clem as she is affectionately called by her father, has been without a mom since she was two.
Her dad said her mother had powerful magic and, after an argument between them, walked out the door and simply never returned. His love for her has never dulled and Clem wishes for her mom to walk through the door and complete their little family.
Her father believes she has powers of her own but they have yet to manifest properly, that is until she decides to push back against a bully at school.
Alongside the mysterious house she stumbles upon, her powers allow her to unlock a whole new set of worlds.
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Inside one of these hand-sized worlds, she spots her classmate, a boy she saw only hours earlier.
Despite him being a bit of a bully, she feels the need to save him from his glass prison.
The story is about friendship, family and standing up for what is right and, while the book may start off with a bang, it becomes a bit of a patchwork piece.
It’s narrative is slightly broken and you will have to do a lot of reading between the lines.
Readers will see the characters experience whirlwinds of emotions in just one bout of dialogue, to the point of confusion, and there is very little in the way of character development and the magic system is not well thought out.
If you are wanting to get your youngsters into reading, maybe give this one a skip for more popular titles in this category.
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