But there’s a general tendency for the writing to be overly literal and clunky, also the representation of gender tends towards annoyingly broad stereotypes, in which man equals action and woman equals domesticity. There are some wonderfully atmospheric passages and I liked some of the folkloric content. But a balance between reality and fantasy is never really achieved, the fantasy elements are underdeveloped, hinted at but too vague and sometimes formulaic. The first novel’s by far the strongest, part supernatural tale, part glimpse at the Otherworld inhabited by the Welsh fair folk who spirit away human children, all mixed together with a coming-of-age narrative focused on young, farmer’s son Gwyn who’s inherited magical powers handed down through generations.

All three of Nimmo’s books deal with some element of familial trauma: the loss of a sister a broken relationship and presumably post-partum psychosis and, in the particularly problematic final piece, a soldier relative who’s recovering from PTSD after a tour of duty in Belfast.

During the summer they run a residential school of art, and she has to move her office, put down tools (type-writer and pencil, and don an apron and cook! They have three grown-up children, Myfawny, Ianto, and Gwenwyfar.Īnother in a subgenre of children’s fantasies that plays with elements of Welsh myth and legend, as in Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising series and Alan Garner’s The Owl Service but Nimmo’s stories don’t have the complexity or emotional heft of either Cooper’s or Garner’s. They live in a very old converted watermill, and the river is constantly threatening to break in, as it has done several times in the past, most dramatically on her youngest child's first birthday. She left BBC to marry a Welsh artist David Wynn Millward and went to live in Wales in her husband's family home. On her return, she joined the BBC, first as a picture researcher, then as an assistant floor manager, studio manager (news) then finally a director/adaptor with Jackanory (a BBC storytelling program for children). She left Britain to teach English to three Italian boys in Almafi, Italy. She graduated and acted in repertory theater in various towns and cities: Eastbourne, Tunbridge Wells, Brighton, Hastings, and Bexhill. Jenny Nimmo was born in Windsor, Berkshire, England and educated at boarding schools in Kent and Surrey from the age of six until the age of sixteen, when she ran away from school to become a drama student/assistant stage manager with Theater South East.

The snow spider by jenny nimmo