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March 21, 2005
The Not-So-Star-Spangled Life of Sunita Sen
I'm currently reading The Not-So-Star-Spangled Life of Sunita Sen by Mitali Perkins, a fabulous new young adult novel hitting bookshelves in a few weeks.
From the back of the book:
As Indian culture continues to curry the movies, music, and literature of American culture, the time is perfect to re-introduce this Indian-themed novel about a young girl’s heartfelt attempt to straddle her two worlds. Like any other eighth grader, smart and spunky Sunita Sen just wants to fit in. She feels she’s doing pretty well, especially as her friendship with the school’s tennis star starts to blossom into something more. But when Sunita’s grandparents come from India to stay with her family, her lifestyle changes, and Sunita suddenly becomes aware of identity issues she’s never before faced. Should she hide her heritage and be like everyone else, or can she find a way to embrace it? Originally published in 1993 as The Sunita Experiment, this touching yet light-hearted tale is back in print in hard and soft cover with a snappy new title, a spectacular jacket design, and a reader’s guide.
Read my entire review of The Not-So-Star-Spangled Life of Sunita Sen in the May/June issue of Kahani, a brand-new South Asian literary magazine for children. (Shameless plug: Subscriptions are only $29 for 1 year/6 issues. Pass on the word!)
Posted by Pooja Makhijani at March 21, 2005 12:47 PM
Comments
I just read this book last week; I enjoyed it well enough, as a light read that I would have undoubtedly appreciated as a teenager, but at the same time, I wanted more. Maybe it's not fair to ask that of this book -- it's one of the first of its kind, after all, and maybe it's just enough that it be a pleasant tale of facing internal conflict and external culture clash.
But I read a lot of YA fiction, and I think we can ask for more from the field. I want to see, in addition to this kind of lighter book, stories that push at more than just culture clash, whose protagonists are navigating deeper and more muddied waters. As I think most teenagers are...
Posted by: Mary Anne Mohanraj at March 22, 2005 05:27 AM
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