Veera Hiranandani

Also OwnVoices?

A junior high aged collection of longish short stories that center around a public meeting place that caters to the South Asian immigrant community for a wide variety of social gatherings. When it comes out that the venue might be closed the teens in their own ways try to help keep the place open. The stories are told from the perspectives of a wide variety of cultures and reading the stories would be educational experience for all open minded teens.

The story is about a girl, Sonia, struggling to find her identity after moving to the suburbs of New York City. Throughout this book, the readers can see themes of identity challenges of adolescents and multiculturalism. Readers can learn the skills of resilience and strength from the character, they can also try to put themselves in her shoes and see how they would react to the situation. This is a book that gives kids of all backgrounds insight into what their peers could be going through.