When the Sea Turned to Silver

When the Sea Turned to Silver (2016) by Grace Lin, a companion to Starry River of the Sky and Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, became a New York Times Bestseller and received a nomination for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature. In this epic fantasy adventure, Pinmei and her friend, Yishan, are in an ancient Chinese folktale of their own as they journey to save storyteller Amah from an evil emperor with magical objects at his disposal.

Pinmei is a shy girl who lives in a mountain village with her grandmother, Amah. The locals come to Amah's hut for her embroidery skills but stay for her gifted storytelling. The author has interspersed these folktale-style stories throughout the novel, and they usually relate loosely to Amah's situation in the narrative. For example, when in captivity, Amah tells the story of an artist who escaped his would-be captors by jumping into one of his paintings.

As the story opens, Pinmei and Amah's village has been enduring a harsh winter, causing the villagers to speculate that The Black Tortoise of Winter is trapped. The Tiger Emperor has risen to power, and the villagers suspect that he has been abducting village men to labor on his Vast Wall.



The emperor attacks Pinmei's village and captures Amah, telling Pinmei's friend, Yishan, that to save her, he must deliver the Luminous Stone that Lights the Night. Yishan saves Pinmei from her burning house, and the two set off for the City of Bright Moonlight on a hunch that the Dragon Pearl referred to in one of Amah's stories may be the Luminous Stone.

Along the way, Yishan and Pinmei meet Lady Meng. She is also on her way to the City of Bright Moonlight, distraught because her husband, Wan, has gone to meet with the emperor, and she fears he is dead. She tells the children that she sewed Wan a protective shirt with an iron needle, leaving the needle in the fabric. Lady Meng travels with Yishan and Pinmei to the City of Bright Moonlight.

When they arrive in the city, they meet with King KaiJae, who tells them that the Tiger Emperor captured Wan. KaiJae explains that the emperor tore a patch from Wan's shirt and became invincible. Before the conversation is over, the emperor attacks the city, and the three flee. Sneaking into the emperor's encampment to look for Amah, they overhear King KaiJae offering the Dragon's Pearl to the emperor, but he refuses it, implying that the Luminous Stone is at the bottom of the sea. The emperor forces KaiJae to use his Paper of Answers, which gives the King one answer under a full moon. The emperor wants to know if he will become immortal; the paper confirms that he will. Through consulting the paper before, the emperor learned that stories were the way to achieve immortality; this discovery led to the abduction of Amah.



After the emperor has left, KaiJae gives the children the Paper of Answers. Lady Meng parts ways with Pimei and Yishan but leaves her horse BaiMa with them. BaiMa transforms into a dragon horse, taking them underwater to the Sea Bottom where they find the Sea King's Crystal Palace. There, they learn from the Paper of Answers that the emperor has trapped The Black Tortoise of Winter using the Iron Rod. The Tortoise's imprisonment has caused the harsh winter, and they know they must free him.

The Sea King relates the story of the fish-tailed goddess Nuwa. She left behind three magical objects, the Iron Rod, the Red Stone, and the Luminous Stone that Lights the Night Sky. He takes the group to the Luminous Stone in the Starry River. Yishan lassos the stone (the moon) and is about to reel it in when they collectively decide the emperor should not have the stone. When the group fails to find the Iron Rod, the Sea King tells them it can shrink to the size of a needle.

The children seek out the emperor at the Capital City, arriving in time to see Wan's funeral. The emperor wishes to marry Lady Meng, but she has declined until after her husband's funeral. As the funeral is ending, she leaps into the water and splashes away, her legs transforming to a fishtail. Pinmei, feeling defeated, begins to cry. To comfort her, Yishan pulls out his handkerchief, and they find a Luminous Stone inside, created by Lady Meng's tears when first they met.



The needle Lady Meng left in her husband's shirt was, in fact, the Iron Rod; when the emperor took it from her husband, it enabled him to confine The Black Tortoise.

The emperor agrees to trade Amah for the stone in the handkerchief. Just as the trade is about to happen, Amah shouts that it is a trap. The emperor only wants Yishan, the Ginseng Boy, who is capable of granting immortality. While the emperor's men try to grab Yishan, Pinmei, noticing that the iron needle is stuck in an embroidered turtle on the emperor's shirt, pulls it out, freeing The Black Tortoise.

Amah is harmed in the scuffle; Yishan heals her by giving her a drop of his golden blood to drink. Yishan becomes an old man and leaves Pinmei and Amah to journey back to their village.



Transformation and hidden identities are significant themes in the novel: the Tiger Emperor transforms into a tiger, Lady Weng is a Nuwa-like being, and Yishan, the Ginseng Boy, turns into an old man. Pinmei is shy and unable to tell stories at the beginning of her journey but develops the confidence to tell the emperor his own story in the novel's climactic face-off. As her grandmother had assured her, "When it is time for you to do something, you will do it."