Sandry’s Book

Tamora Pierce is one of my all time favourite writers. I adore everything she puts her mind to and her Song of the Lioness was one of the first fandoms I really got in to. I devoured it and then turned to the rest of her backlist. I'd scour messenger boards for spoilers, read all available fanfiction and anxiously anticipate every new book. I spent months and then years reading and rereading everything.

I was lucky enough to have the chance to meet her and for a woman usually confident and capable of putting herself out there I could barely speak. I was bouncing off the walls before, during and after and my mother could not stop laughing at me for being so starstruck. But Tamora Pierce is my hero.

Before there was Hermione Granger, show more Tamora Pierce gave us heroines like Alanna, Daine, Kel, Daja, Sandry, Tris and all of the other wonderful characters she created. Female characters who were brave and fearless and daring and stubborn and kind. Characters who were dedicated and loyal and capable of epic badassery and characters who were confident of and in their beliefs and the ways they needed to act to encourage change.

Tamora Pierce delivers satisfying and believable characters arcs, lush world building and vivid adventure stories that spark the imagination and create passionate life long fans.

Circle of Magic introduces four teens, Sandrilene "Sandry" fa Toren, Daja Kisubo, Briar Moss and Trisana Chandler who are brought together when they are found to have magic. Discovered by Niklaren "Niko" Goldeye, a mage with a talent for finding hidden things, the four are mages with rare abilities.

Taken to Winding Circle Temple, the four are housed in Discipline cottage under the care of Dedicates Lark and Rosethorn and found mentors in their areas. Apart from weather mage Tris who is mentored by Niko, the rest all find mentors with the same magic. Thread magic for Lark and Sandry, plant magic for Rosethorn and Briar and smith magic for Daja and Dedicate Frostpine.

Each book sees the quartet develop their magic abilities separately and together and build strong bonds of family and friendship between each other and their mentors. With adventure, magic mishaps, pirates and a host of other complications, the Circle of Magic books are exciting and action packed reading for fantasy lovers.

The first book, The Magic in the Weaving, is Sandrilene "Sandry" fa Toren's book. Although written in third person, Sandry is at the heart of this book and the large majority focuses on her history and her magic.

Kind, caring and fiery about injustice, Sandry is the thread that weaves the gang together. Literally. I adored this bit;

Now that her magic was focused, the spindle was as visible to Sandry as if she worked on the spiral road at noon; so were the bits of her friends that they had put into her lumpy thread. Gently she touched Briar with a magical hand, and drew out a slim green fibre. From Tris she drew a blue one, the colour of deep, fresh water. Daja’s was the reddish orange of a hot coal fire. Her own was the honey colour of undyed silk and flax.

Pierce, Tamora. Circle of Magic #1: Magic In the Weaving . Scholastic. Kindle Edition.

She was orphaned when a plague took her parents and the ensuing mob killed her beloved nurse but remains a force of positivity for herself and others. She is the great niece of the current ruler of Emelan, Duke Verdis, has travelled all over and is always ready to stick up for the underdog. Sandry wins over the prickly hearts of the other three with her persistence and her loyal and big heart.

[Sandry] sighed. “Not you, too! No, my mind’s made up. I’ll make friends with whomever I want, so there. I just need more uvumi [patience].”

Pierce, Tamora. Circle of Magic #1: Magic In the Weaving . Scholastic. Kindle Edition.

I loved reading about the four discovering their powers and slowly becoming friends with each other. I love them all but Briar would have to be my favourite. His attitude, sarcasm and logic are just perfection. And his relationship with Rosethorn is fantastic. I love how they're both prickly but somehow manage to work past it to become family.

Just as he was about to stand, he saw the trick. “You’ll hang me in the well.” Rosethorn sighed. That foot tapped again, impatient now. “No, I won’t. I water this garden with what’s in there – I’m not about to poison it.” This made sense.

Pierce, Tamora. Circle of Magic #1: Magic In the Weaving . Scholastic. Kindle Edition.

Rosethorn is a total badass and I love how Briar looks up to her.

“No. Listen, you four,” Rosethorn said, “while you’re here, address problems or questions or needs to Lark. She likes children, the Green Man alone knows why. “I don’t like children in my garden – not without my say so, anyway,” she added with a glance at Briar. “Play somewhere else. Tell Lark where you go, always. Me, you leave alone. And that workshop on the side of the house, the one that’s mostly wood? That’s mine, too. Touch anything in there, and you will die the worst death I can invent.” She looked at each of them in turn, then smiled, showing teeth. “I’m glad we had this little talk.”

Placing her napkin beside her plate, Rosethorn went outside. For a moment there was silence. Then Lark said, “Her bark is worse than her bite.”
“Bet her bite’s poisonous,” muttered Daja.
“And with the bark you die slow,” added Tris. They grinned, then remembered that merchants and Traders disliked each other, and turned away.

Pierce, Tamora. Circle of Magic #1: Magic In the Weaving . Scholastic. Kindle Edition.

The fight to save Little Bear was funny. I loved that Sandry had managed to make the others feel obligated to help. Tris irritated me a little bit with that though, I wanted her to be a bit more willing. And if she wasn't, fine but she really annoyed me when she told Sandry to be quiet because the fight was already bad enough. Have some guts. Just because Tris screwed up with the magic, doesn't change the fact that the boys were in the wrong beating up an animal. I liked that Sandry was going to bat for him.

And I loved Briar and his shakkan plant

Briar sought out his shakkan as soon as he returned to the cottage. It had taken no harm from the quake; the shallow dish was uncracked, the earth inside just as he’d left it. Putting his hands on the thick trunk to thank the tree, he now felt the power that had been hidden in it before, sunk deep in each fibre. It also had buds at the end of each twig. “None of that,” he warned, starting to pinch them off. “Your helping me doesn’t mean I’ll let you grow any which-way.” He felt something like a tree-sigh under his hands. The shakkan thought, Perhaps one new bud? “Oh, all right,” Briar said. “Which do you want to keep?”

Pierce, Tamora. Circle of Magic #1: Magic In the Weaving . Scholastic. Kindle Edition.

The shakkan totally deserves a new bud for helping save them.

The friendship between them all gets off to a rough start but soon develops into mutual respect, affection and loyalty and it was great. Plus their little found family with their mentors was perfection. I particularly enjoyed how they use their powers to save themselves when they end up trapped in the cavern with Little Bear.

A classic fantasy series with magic, friendships and adventure. 5 stars. show less

I had a great time reading this first book in the Circle of Magic series with my daughter. First-off, since this is a middle grade level book, let me just say that my daughter (11 years old) LOVED the book and is excited to continue the rest of the series. She's really taken to both the world and the characters, so I'd say she gives this book 5 stars.

As a grown-up reading this book, I enjoyed the world and characters as well but thought the plot was a little lacking. Most of the book is just introducing each of the main characters and describing how they came to be at Winding Circle Temple (basically a magic school for slightly unusual mages). The writing was smooth and engaging, and the characters were all endearing with unique show more backstories and voices. They are all outcasts in their own ways, and they're all from very different backgrounds, which provides the reader with a lot of handy windows into the world. Other than the kids coming together and meeting their teachers, not much happens until almost the end of the book. So, if you're looking for a "slice of life" style of story, this is perfect. I tend to like a little more "story" in my stories, which is why I knocked the rating down to 4 stars.

I also found it interesting that this book is labeled as "Sandry's Book." Each of the four books in the series corresponds to one of the four kids who make up the protagonist cast, so I assumed each book would focus on the named child of that book. Not so much. While Sandry is the first character we are introduced to in this book, all of the children have equal page time in the story. And the book is written is such a way that it is constantly switching point of view between the four of them, so it's not like the title character determines the narrator. I'm really not sure why this is considered "Sandry's Book" more than any of the other characters'. show less

Sandry's Book (which I have recently seen listed as "The Magic in the Weaving") introduces readers to the Emelan universe, one of two universises created by Tamara Pierce.

Although I enjoyed both, I prefer the books from the Tortal universe. Both are set in fantasy medieval realms: a romanticized version of medieval times with the addition of magic. Each Tortall quartet focuses on a single main character, while each Emelan quartet focuses on four. The former allows the reader to gain a deeper understanding of the protagonist, while the latter provides more variety. The former also feels like a more developed world with more cultures and species. In addition, the different types of magic used by the four protagonists - and later, their show more students - are not different enough to feel like unique storylines. In Tortall, by contrast, Alanna and Kel are knights, Diane is a wild mage, and Aly is a spy. Even the stories of the two knights are dramatically different.

Nevertheless, Sandry's Book is an interesting coming of age story that sets the stage for the rest of the Circle of Magic quartet, which in turneads into The Circle Opens quartet. show less

This book is SUCH a good book for our current pandemic times; I said somewhere that Tamora Pierce books are 50% learning meditation, 50% crafting, and I stand by that but it's clearly deliberate with this series in particular. Just so soft and soothing to read, even the dramatic parts. And the character are fun even if they don't really feel super fleshed out in this space, and the relationships with mentors are so good. I'll definitely be rereading the rest of the series, but this was so good in this moment so if you need something short and soft, check it out!

This is (fractionally) my favorite Circle of Magic story. That's at least partly because this is the book with the most world-building - introducing us to all four of the kids and to their teachers, among others. I really like Sandry, her magic and her upbringing...it's funny, here and later it's mentioned that her parents were lightminded gadabouts who traveled just for fun. But every time I haven't read the series in a while, I forget that and make them diplomats...like my parents! Definitely a case of personal viewpoint coloring what I read...

A group of very different young people who have lost much in the last year are thrown together in Discipline cottage where they discover they all have one very unusual thing in common.

This is the first time I've read one of Tamora Pierce's "Circle" books after tearing through her entire Tortall series last summer. This series is definitely for a younger audience. So far, I prefer the adventure of the other series, but I enjoy the characters in this one, too, and I'm sure the group here will get into plenty of mischief as they age. I'm excited about seeing what happens next.

Nice introduction to the Magic Circle series. Although Sandry's introduction in the novel is related first and with more detail, the story encompasses the other 3 characters who make up the circle (Tris, Daja, and Briar). The novel breaks for each character by chapters. Author Pierce handles this format very well and the switching is smooth enough to maintain the pacing

The writing style is this book leans to a younger YA audience, compared to The Will of the Empress, the book I read first. Despite the simpler tone, the book was a good read and all the characters amusing and annoying, as dictated by the plot.
My main difficulty with the book was the sequence where a disaster occurs, creating a dire situation. The description of this show more catastrophe was not very clear and drew in too much extraneous detail, so the developments were hard to mentally visualize. show less