Gathering Blue

Young Kira is alone. Her mother has just died of a sickness and her father was killed years ago during a hunt; born with a twisted leg, no one in her village will help her. Village life is built on savagery and deceit, and for young Kira death looms over her head as well. Her home has been burnt to cleanse the sickness that killed her mother, and now her neighbors wish to lay claim to everything that survived the burning. Kira has only one skill to offer, and it isn't one that most of the villagers would consider useful enough to keep her alive for: under her fingers, threads come alive. Patterns and colors form that Kira did not plan, and no one else could even begin to design or weave.
At last the women of the village make their move: they bring her before the Council of Guardians in an attempt to drive her off. The Council makes a judgment that startles both parties: Kira is to live in the Council Edifice now and work to repair the Singer's Robe, an incredible work of embroidery that tells the entire history of the world. One day, they tell her, she will finish the robe by embroidering the last panels of the future. The colors are beautiful, and Kira's hands itch to work on the magnificent piece of art. Two things make her pause: as incredible as the Edifice is, she begins to suspect that its walls hold dangerous secrets; and while the Council has told Kira that they will provide the pattern for the future, she dreams of finding the color of peace to weave into the threads of the Robe. But no one knows the making of the color blue...
Category:Young Adult
Category:Science Fiction
Category:Lois Lowry