YA Materials, Literature Log, Book #19: Spin the Dawn

Title: Spin the Dawn

Author: Elizabeth Lim

Category: Free Choice


Maia desperately wants to be a tailor like her father before her, and is acknowledged as the only one of her siblings to have inherited her father's sewing ability. After a war tears apart her country, killing two of her brothers and leave another with severe injuries, her father is summoned to the palace to compete for the position of Royal Tailor to the Emperor's soon-to-be wife, Lady Sarnai, who doesn't want to marry him at all. However, as Maia's father is older and her brother is injured, Maia is the only member of the family able to actually go. So, she disguises herself as a boy and journeys to the palace. With the help of magic scissors passed down from her grandmother, Maia wows the judges of the competition, but Lady Sarnai has one more surprise in store: she challenges Maia to make three dresses, made of the sun, moon, and stars. Taking the court enchanter, Edan, with her, Maia has to travel across the country in search of the materials for this task.


This book was amazing, in my opinion. I loved seeing the elements of Mulan combined with a lesser-known fairytale featuring three impossible dresses. I also liked that Lim chose to tell the story of the tailor, rather than the princess, as is common in fairytale stories. Like the other fairytale retellings I read for this course, I would utilize Spin the Dawn in a fairytale-oriented program or display, and encourage teens to think creatively about how they might retell the stories they love. I think this could be a good writing exercise as well, and encourage creativity among teenagers.

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