When the Sea Turned to Silver

I just finished reading this novel with my kids. It’s the third in Grace Lin’s Where the Mountain Meets the Moon series, but the first that we’ve read.

It’s a riveting, graceful journey. Pinmei develops from a shy young girl, the granddaughter of a renowned storyteller into a storyteller in her own right. Over the course of the novel, she goes from telling her grandmother’s stories, to stories that she makes up, to finally giving voice to her own story.

The journey that she makes seems to begin in the ordinary world, but slowly the line between folklore, legend, and reality blurs. Stone changes to statue, changes to fish, changes to man. Her friends are not who she thought they were. But she learns to survive in the constantly changing environment using stories, both as landmarks to navigate by and, as she gains in confidence and strength, as tools to change the world herself.

The book seems particularly relevant right now. The Tiger Emperor is trying to become invincible and immortal, and he will oppress, kill, and imprison anyone or anything, human or divine, to do so. The Vast Wall he is building is includes the bones of workers who have died.

At the beginning of the book, he imprisons Pinmei’s grandmother (or amah), and this forces Pinmei, who is painfully shy, out into the world, led by her friend Yishan. Together they must evade the Emperor and his men and find the Luminous Stone that Lights the Night so that they can free Amah.