The Weather Weaver by Tamsin Mori

Cover illustration by David Dean

With its beautiful cover calling to me, this gorgeous book is one that I skipped over time and time again while trawling through Net Galley for reasons only known to my subconscious. I had seen repeatedly on Twitter how wonderful it was, but somehow never quite got round to requesting it. No matter, because the older of my two wonderful children gave me a copy for Mother’s Day and using still feeling a bit below par after my first Covid jab as the perfect excuse, spent much of Sunday snuggled up on the sofa enjoying this gorgeous tale.

Set on one of the remote Shetland Isles, the story is a wonderful mix of folklore, magic and adventure and one which – when I posted the inevitable image of my latest read on Twitter – the author Thomas Taylor replied to say that he was also reading, telling me he thought it charming. And charming it most certainly is – with a heavy pinch of spark for good measure.

Our heroine Stella is off to stay with her grandpa on one of the smaller islands of the Shetlands, having not seen him since she was much younger. Equipped with the tattered old copy of Shetland Myths and Magic that her much loved late grandmother used to read to her, she does not enjoy the journey across the sea – imagining all sorts of mythical creatures which could be lurking below the surface. Rather than mermaids and selkies though, Grandpa has caught a masgoom – an ugly creature at which Stella turns her nose up, causing the old man to be cross with her.

After this poor start, things go from bad to worse between the two of them and Stella finds herself leaving Grandpa behind to go out to explore her surroundings and let him calm down. As she walks across the island she meets a strange woman who introduces herself as Tamar and instructs her to go and fetch her a cloud. Bemused at Tamar’s assertation that just because she has never done it before, it doesn’t mean that she can’t, Stella follows the woman’s instructions and duly bags her first cloud.

Accompanying Tamar to her house, Stella is amazed by what she finds there and even more astonished when her new friend shows her that she can perform magic by weaving the weather. Stella is keen to learn more but when she returns to Grandpa’s with her new cloud friend in tow, it accidentally gives the old man brain fog of a quite serious nature. As Stella learns more about the responsibilities of being a weather weaver, she spots a strange figure – one that Tamar identifies as The Haken: a sea witch with evil intentions. Will Stella and her cloud not only be able to restore Grandpa to his normal self but prevent The Haken’s dreadful plans for the island coming to fruition?

Local myths and legends are often of interest only to locals and those with a particular enthusiasm for such things, but here the author has created a story which is guaranteed to hook everyone who reads it. Magic is a universally popular subject and here it is brought to life in a refreshingly different way, without those stereotypical broomsticks and twiggy wands that so many of us would picture immediately when the word is mentioned. Tamar is a wonderful tutor in the craft to her young protégé, and Stella is an open and likeable student.

In her little cloud, Stella has a highly original and delightful familiar – one with a mind of its own and bursting with character. At first, her new companion is like an over-excitable puppy in need of training and Stella is not necessarily as firm with it as she should be. When the cloud acts to create Grandpa’s brain fog, however, Stella is soon faced with the decision as to whether or not she should should leave him that way and starts to take her role and her responsibility for the cloud more seriously.

The good news for fans of this title – and if Twitter is anything to go by, there are a great many of us – is that there will be a sequel to tell us more about Stella’s adventures. I for one am already looking forward to it enormously. Probably most suitable for upper KS2, I know that when I take this in to share with my Year 5s this week it will gain many new fans in school. Until then, I am awarding this title a tremendous 5 out of 5 stars.