Book Review: When the Sea Turned To Silver

I just finished When the Sea Turned To Silver by Grace Lin this morning.  And I’m not surprised at how lovely it is.  Grace does an amazing job at integrating Chinese folklore seamlessly into a tale all her own.  This is the third companion novel to Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and Starry River of the Sky. And what I like most about these novels is that you could easily read them as stand alone stories, but if you pay close attention they are all woven together with characters, stories and locations.

Pinmei’s grandmother is taken away by soldiers of the emperor and it is up to Pinmei and her friend, Yishan to save her because without her grandmother’s stories, Pinmei’s world is in a forever state of winter.  Pinmei and Yishan travel to the City of Bright Moonlight, to the Sea Bottom and to the Emperor’s palace to save her grandmother all the while folktales bring to light more of the story than you would know otherwise.  The beautiful and lyrical storytelling is brought to life by gorgeous illustrations that call to mind the ancient art of China.

This would be a beautiful series to share aloud as I can only imagine the stories would be amazing to listen to and as I said you can read each book individually or read them together for an even richer experience. What I also love is that Grace provides a bibliography of where she found her stories, which leads me to believe that this is not only a gorgeous book to discover, but that it is also historically and culturally accurate.

Twitter Booktalk (14o characters or less): It’s up to quiet, little mouse Pinmei to save her storytelling grandmother from the emperor in When the Sea Turned To Silver by @pacylin

Title: When the Sea Turned To Silver
Author: Grace Lin
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Publication Date: 2016
Page Number: 370pgs.